How does using a semicolon or a full stop change meaning?

There's a lovely and beautifully self-demonstrating description of how punctuation marks work stylistically in Lewis Thomas's little piece on Punctuation.

Here's the paragraph on semicolons:

I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added; it reminds you sometimes of the Greek usage. It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period. The period tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; to read on; it will get clearer.

"The Greek usage" in the quotation refers to the fact (discussed in a previous paragraph) that

the Greeks employed the semicolon for their question mark. It produces a strange sensation to read a Greek sentence which is a straightforward question:

• Why weepest thou;

instead of

• Why weepest thou?

This is from Larry Trask’s 'Guide to Punctuation':

The semicolon (;) has only one major use. It is used to join two complete sentences into a single written sentence when all of the following conditions are met:
(1) The two sentences are felt to be too closely related to be separated by a full stop;

(2) There is no connecting word which would require a comma, such as and or but;

(3) The special conditions requiring a colon are absent.

I would say that the first of those conditions is not met in your example and that a full stop after charges would be a more effective way of separating the two clauses.