US actor Bill Cosby has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman at his home 12 years ago - the first criminal charges brought against the comedian out of the torrent of allegations that destroyed his good-guy image.
He has been charged with aggravated indecent assault in a case that sets the stage for one of the biggest Hollywood celebrity trials, and which could see the 78-year-old jailed in the twilight of his life.
In bringing the case, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman overruled her predecessor, who declined to charge Cosby in 2005 when a Temple University employee first alleged that the comic drugged her and violated her at his mansion in suburban Philadelphia.
The TV star acknowledged under oath a decade ago that he had sexual contact with the woman but he said it was consensual.
The charges were announced just days before the 12-year statute of limitations for bringing charges was set to run out.
Pennsylvania prosecutors reopened the case over the summer as damaging testimony was unsealed in a related civil lawsuit against Cosby and as dozens of other women came forward with similar accusations.
Many of those alleged assaults date back decades, and the statute of limitations for bringing charges has expired in nearly every case.
The woman, who is now 42, is ready to face Cosby in court, her lawyer Dolores Troiani said earlier this year.
"She's a very strong lady," Ms Troiani said. "She'll do whatever they request of her."
The charges add to the towering list of legal problems facing the actor, including defamation and sex abuse lawsuits filed in Boston, Los Angeles and Pennsylvania.
In 1965, Cosby became the first black actor to land a leading role in a network drama I Spy, and he went on to earn three Emmys.
Over the next three decades, the Philadelphia-born comic created TV's animated Fat Albert and the top-rated Cosby Show, the 1980s sitcom celebrated as ground-breaking television for its depiction of a warm and loving family headed by two black professionals - one a lawyer, the other a doctor.
The woman claims she was assaulted after going to his home in January 2004 for some career advice.
Then-district attorney Bruce Castor declined to charge Cosby, saying at the time that both the TV star and his accuser could be portrayed in "a less than flattering light".
This year, Mr Castor said the allegations in the woman's lawsuit were more serious than the account she gave police, and if that information had been known at the time, "we might have been able to make a case".
After the criminal case initially went nowhere, the woman settled her lawsuit against Mr Cosby in 2006 on confidential terms.
