A charge was a formal accusation made by a governmental or organizational authority that an individual had committed an offense. The act of charging someone was a preliminary step to prosecution.
In 2266, during a hearing aboard the USS Enterprise, Harcourt Fenton Mudd learned that he had been charged by Captain James T. Kirk with traveling in the galaxy without a flight plan, traveling in the galaxy without an identification beam, failure to respond to a starship's signal, and illegal operation of a vessel. Mudd was later handed over to the legal authorities for prosecution. (TOS: "Mudd's Women")