For the first time, Bill Cosby will face criminal charges in connection with an accusation of sexual assault, Montgomery County prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced on Wednesday.

Prosecutors charged Cosby with aggravated indecent assault, a felony, First Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a morning press conference. The single charge stems from an alleged sexual assault in early 2004.

Today, after examination of all the evidence, we are able to seek justice on behalf of the victim, Steele said. The charges were filed thanks to new information uncovered in July, Steele said, noting that the incident remains within the 12-year statute of limitations.

The felony charge came at the conclusion of a second investigation into allegations that the comedian drugged and assaulted former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. Constand first accused Cosby of assaulting her a year after the alleged assault. At the time, prosecutors declined to press charges.

On the evening in question, Mr. Cosby urged her to take pills that he provided her and to drink wine, the effect of which rendered her unable to move, Steele said to reporters, later saying the pills rendered the victim frozen, and paralyzed. That was when Cosby allegedly committed aggravated indecent assault, the first degree felony for which he was charged on Wednesday.

Before the assault, the victim came to consider Mr. Cosby her mentor and her friend, Steele said, noting that Cosby made two earlier sexual advances, both of which were denied.

After the alleged assault, Constand moved back in with her mother in Canada, whom she eventually told of the incident. They then notified Canadian authorities who notified counterparts in Pennsylvania, leading to the initial investigation that led to no charges, prosecutors said in a press release.

An attorney for Constand commended the professionalism of prosecutors in a brief statement issued to reporters on Wednesday, after the charges were announced. The statement also expresses appreciation for the consideration and courtesy extended to Constand during the investigation. In that this matter is now being pursued in the criminal justice system, the statement concludes, we will not comment further.

Prosecutors took a second look at Constands allegations this year, based on new information that came to light in July of 2015, Steele said. After establishing that the statute of limitations had not yet expired for the alleged 2004 assault, the investigation was reopened.

Cosby acknowledged in a 2005 deposition that he intended to give drugs to young women with whom he wanted to have sex. His admission that he obtained Quaaludes to use on women was contained in a 10-year-old deposition given by the legendary comedian in a civil lawsuit filed by Constand.

U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno unsealed the records for the first time in July, writing that Cosby has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education, and crime. To the extent that Defendant has freely entered the public square and thrust himself into the vortex of [these public issues], he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.

In an extensive investigation of Cosby by Washington Post reporters last year, several of his accusers said Cosby had a ready supply of pills. One woman said Cosby had a special briefcase with compartments for different pills. She said he told her the pills would help her relax.

Documents containing excerpts of the deposition appeared to support one element of the repeated allegations of sexual assault lodged against Cosby, some of which date to the late 1960s. Dozens of women have said Cosby sexually assaulted them after they were rendered unconscious or incapacitated by unknown substances.

However, Cosby did not admit to any criminal activity in the documents; the deposition was taken as part of a lawsuit filed by Constand, who said Cosby molested her. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Cosby has denied all wrongdoing and, until Wednesday, had never been charged with a crime; he and his representatives have steadfastly denied the assault claims by a succession of women. He said in his 2005 deposition that he gave Constand only three half-pills of Benadryl, an over-the-counter allergy medication.

In a deposition taken in late September 2005, Cosby was asked by Dolores M. Troiani, Constands attorney, When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?

Cosby replied: Yes.

Cosbys lawyers said he did not have Quaaludes during the time he knew Constand and did not give them to her.

Cosby admitted in the deposition to getting seven prescriptions for Quaaludes in the 1970s. He also admitted to meeting one unidentified woman after a performance in Las Vegas and offering her the drug. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex, he said.

Prosecutors had until January to charge Cosby in connection with the allegations before the states 12-year statute of limitations expired.

Cosby will be arraigned on Wednesday afternoon, Steele said.