Jurors say Stevens testimony sealed his fate.

The jurors said they went from near-disaster to a quick verdict after they put their bickering aside and realized that prosecutors had presented an overwhelming case. Stevens, they said, did himself no favors by taking the stand, where he destroyed the grandfatherly image his lawyers had carefully crafted.

For most of the trial, the 84-year-old senator sat hunched over the defense table listening to testimony through court-issued headphones. He fit the part, some jurors said, of an elderly gentleman who left many of life's details -- including his house renovations -- to others.

But the jurors' empathy vanished the moment Stevens came under cross-examination. Stevens, the jurors said, came off as evasive, arrogant and combative, and his answers did not jibe with the evidence. He said one gift was a loan and that others were not gifts at all. He said he was not aware that work had been done on his house.

"He looked fragile for most of the trial, and then he testified, and, man, he became this lion," said Colleen Walsh, one of two jurors and two alternates interviewed about their experiences during the trial. "I thought, 'Wait a minute, if the defense is trying to portray this man as a sympathetic character who didn't know what was going on in his life, why did they put him on the stand and he could recall everything that happened except the gifts?' "

I am not saying I am Nostradamus or anything but I did predict that Ted Stevens testifying at his trial would be be his undoing.

But I also knew that he would simply HAVE TO TESTIFY.

No way was Ted Stevens going to sit quietly while his fate was decided for him by mere lawyers and prosecutors. Not the great Ted Stevens!

He is a fighter! He had to take them on himself, there was really no choice for someone like him. His arrogance and sense of entitlement meant he believed only he could ensure his victory.

But of course the reality is that it was that arrogance which was all the jurors needed to see to know that he was indeed guilty and deserving of his fate.

So in the end it appears that Ted Stevens was defeated by none other then Ted Stevens. How poetic.