Reuters

Bill Cosby was charged Wednesday in Pennsylvania with sexually assaulting a woman in 2004 after plying her with drugs and alcohol.

The arrest marks the only criminal case against the once-beloved performer whose father-figure persona has been damaged by dozens of misconduct accusations.

Hours after the charge was filed, Mr. Cosby, 78, arrived at a courthouse in Elkins Park, Pa., just outside Philadelphia, with his attorney, Monique Pressley, and an unidentified man.

Mr. Cosby appeared before Judge Elizabeth McHugh in a brief hearing, where he posted a $1 million bond, turned over his passport and indicated in court that he understood questions that were posed to him. The judge instructed him to present himself to the police station in nearby Cheltenham Township for fingerprinting and booking.

The entire proceeding lasted for several minutes, and Mr. Cosby, walking with a cane, emerged from the courthouse to climb back into the black sport utility vehicle that brought him to the hearing and was driven away.

“Today, after examination of all the evidence, we are able to seek justice on behalf of the victim,” Kevin Steele, the newly elected district attorney for Montgomery County, Pa., told an earlier news conference. Mr. Steele made a campaign issue of his intent to prosecute Mr. Cosby.

The alleged victim in the case, Andrea Constand, a former basketball team manager at Temple University in Philadelphia, Mr. Cosby’s alma mater, is one of more than 50 women who have publicly accused the star of sexually assaulting them in incidents dating back decades.

Neither Mr. Cosby nor his representatives could be reached for comment. He and his lawyers, while acknowledging marital infidelity on Mr. Cosby’s part, consistently have denied allegations of sexual misconduct.

Mr. Cosby, who personified the model American family man in his long-running hit television show, was charged with aggravated indecent assault, a second degree felony carrying a maximum penalty of five to 10 years in prison and a $25,000 fine.

The charge was filed just before the statute of limitations deadline for a criminal prosecution was to expire in January. The charge stems from allegations brought by Ms. Constand, who settled a civil case against Mr. Cosby for an undisclosed sum in 2006.

According to an affidavit accompanying the charge, the victim was a guest at Mr. Cosby’s home in Cheltenham, Pa., one evening in January 2004 when he gave her wine and urged her to take three blue pills, prosecutors said in a statement.

“Shortly thereafter, the victim became incapacitated, and Cosby led her to a couch. The victim lay down ... and Cosby positioned himself behind her. Cosby then fondled the victim’s breasts, put his hands inside her pants and penetrated her vagina with his fingers,” prosecutors said.

“The victim did not consent to any of these acts and reported that she was unable to move or speak and felt ‘frozen’ and ‘paralyzed,’ ” prosecutors said.

When questioned by police as to whether he had sex with Ms. Constand, Mr. Cosby, according to the charging documents, answered, “never asleep or awake.” The statement appeared to be at odds with Mr. Cosby’s sworn deposition in the civil case that they had consensual sexual contact.

Mr. Steele said the case was brought after new information came to light this year, adding that the victim was willing to cooperate.

Ms. Constand declined to speak to reporters gathered outside her home in Toronto. Her lawyer, Dolores Troiani, issued a statement thanking the district attorney’s office, adding, “In that this matter is now being pursued in the criminal justice system, we will not comment further.”

“This is a very significant development,” Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has represented 29 of the accusers, told CNN. Some of them have brought civil suits against Mr. Cosby.

The accusations have shocked Mr. Cosby’s fans and crushed his reputation as an entertainer and father figure.

Many of them occurred decades ago and the statute of limitations for prosecuting them expired.

A portion of a sworn deposition by Mr. Cosby in 2005-2006 in the civil suit brought by Ms. Constand was made public earlier this year. In it, Mr. Cosby acknowledged under questioning that he had obtained Quaaludes, a sedative that was a popular recreational drug in the 1970s, intending to give them to young women in order to have sex with them.

About his encounter with Ms. Constand, Mr. Cosby said under oath that it was consensual and that he gave her some Benadryl, an anti-allergy medication, to relax her.

At one point in his deposition, Mr. Cosby said he recalled thinking, “Tell your mother about the orgasm. Tell your mother how we talked,” as he worried about what her mother might think.

Prosecutors in court documents cited Mr. Cosby’s “evasive and conflicting identifications of the drug he gave the victim” as a key factor in their decision to charge him.

Ms. Constand, who has sought in court to unseal the record of her civil case and settlement with Mr. Cosby, said in legal documents filed in July that she is a lesbian, despite his sworn assertions that their encounter was consensual and that he has a knack for reading women’s cues.

“I think that I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things, whatever you want to call them,” he said in the excerpt, published by The New York Times.

Mr. Cosby has stressed through his attorneys and in court filings that the deposition excerpts contained no testimony that he engaged in any non-consensual sex or gave Quaaludes to anyone without their knowledge or consent.

Earlier this month, Mr. Cosby sued seven of his accusers, saying the women who said they were assaulted were lying and had defamed his “honorable legacy and reputation.”

The actor is best known for playing Dr. Cliff Huxtable, the family patriarch in the TV sitcom “The Cosby Show,” one of the country’s highest-rated television shows in the 1980s.