The findings of the Freeh Report led the NCAA to issue crippling sanctions on Penn State's football program, heavily reducing the number of football scholarships over a four-year period and leveling the school a $60 million fine.
Even as Sandusky was sentenced to jail for the rest of his life in October, the fallout continues to unfold. Two ex-Penn State officials are currently awaiting trial stemming from perjury charges related to the case, and two separate investigations are being conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Education, looking into whether the university violated federal law by not properly responding to Sandusky's crimes.
JASON RUSSELL
At the start of 2012, there were very few people in America who could give you detailed information on any of the following subjects: the Lord's Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony, and the non-profit group Invisible Children and its co-founder, Jason Russell.
That all changed—and rather quickly—in March. Russell's non-profit released a video on YouTube, entitled KONY 2012, that chronicled Joseph Kony, leader of a guerrilla army that has clashed with the Ugandan military and forced thousands of children to fight in its battles or be killed.
The video, which was viewed over 35 million times over the course of five days, was met with a fierce backlash. From calls that Invisible Children was commodifying human rights violations, to critics who claimed the video did not focus on the true problem, the reaction to KONY 2012 ground Russell's campaign to a halt.
The avalanche of criticism took its toll on Russell, who was filmed marching around a San Diego, Calif. street corner, ranting to passing traffic and pedestrians while naked. Russell's family would later reveal that he was suffering from "reactive psychosis." The diagnosis did not stop the public from lampooning Russell's actions, with South Park parodying the incident in an April episode.
DAVID PETRAEUS
Despite all the privacy that should come with running America's top spy agency, a very public scandal rocked the leader of the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2012.
Shortly after Election Day, David Petraeus resigned as head of the CIA after acknowledging an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, a reserve army officer who published a flattering biography about the four-star general earlier in the year.
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