Once the most powerful man in Italy, former Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi finally ran out of appeals and parliamentary maneuvers.  Italy’s Senate resoundingly stripped him of his parliamentary seat, a dramatic and humiliating expulsion.

The Senate ended a 20-year era in Italian politics with lawmakers reading speeches for and against Berlusconi – mostly against – before the head of the body declared the right wing leader expelled.  His criminal convictions bar him from running for office for two years.

A defiant Berlusconi responded with an outdoor rally in central Rome.  He told supporters gathered outside his Rome residence that “no political leader has suffered a persecution such as I have lived through.”

Paola Taverna, a senator with the populist Five Star Movement, blamed Berlusconi for passing laws that benefited his own interests without ever addressing the fundamental stagnation of Italy’s economy and politics.  She called him a “a habitual offender and a recidivist, the promoter, organizer and beneficiary of his crimes.”

Guglielmo Epifani of the coalition-leading Democratic Party said, “The Senate did nothing more than apply the law. It was the right thing to do, otherwise we would have had the law of the jungle.”

The 77-year old Berlusconi stands convicted of tax fraud, paying for sex with child prostitute, and abuse of power.  The billionaire will serve a one-year sentence, probably under house arrest or by doing community service because of his age.