Bill Cosby Faces 10 Years in Prison

Bill Cosby showed up to a district court outside Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon and was arraigned on a sexual assault charge, the AP reports. He was fingerprinted and then released on $1 million bail pending trial, with the next court hearing set for Jan. 14. A sampling of the coverage swirling around the case:

• How much prison time does he face? Criminal defense experts tell Time that there are many variables, but ultimately he could face up to a decade behind bars. The formal charge is aggravated indecent assault, and it carries a 10-year maximum sentence, but in Pennsylvania, the standard sentencing range is 22 to 36 months—but a former DA in a neighboring county believes that because the allegations are so serious (involving alleged past sexual harassment and alleged use of incapacitating drugs, among other things) Cosby would get more than three years if found guilty.

• Read the criminal complaint. The Los Angeles Times has the 23-page document, which includes the allegation: "William Henry Cosby did penetrate the genitals of the complainant with a part of his body while the complainant was unconscious."
• Read the original media report on the Cosby scandal. After Andrea Constand accused Cosby of sexual assault in 2005, and settled a civil lawsuit against him in 2006, People published a story in 2006 about three other women who said Cosby had also drugged and assaulted them. MSN has it here.
• Could Los Angeles be next? Multiple women say Cosby assaulted them in LA, and the Los Angeles Times reports that the LAPD is investigating one case, that of a woman who says Cosby assaulted her in 2008, when she was 18. Though the statute of limitations is generally six years in adult sex-crime cases, legal experts say that a California law may mean he could face criminal charges in LA as well.
• Read a timeline of the charges. Vulture has put one together, looking at the case from Nov. 2002 (when Constand first met Cosby) to the current day.

(More Bill Cosby stories.)