Russell Brand was convicted Thursday of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault at London's Southwark Crown Court, and Judge Joel Bennathan told him to expect a "significant" prison term when he's sentenced Monday—raising the question of whether a man who spent years inside the establishment only faced its full legal weight after he turned against it.

Brand, 51, denied all charges and testified he was once obsessed with sex and promiscuous but never forced anyone. The jury of eight men and four women believed him on three counts, acquitting him of two rape charges and one count of attempted indecent assault. On four others, they didn't.

Every allegation dates from 1999 to 2009—when Brand hosted BBC radio shows, MTV programs, and Big Brother spinoffs as a made man in British media. The prosecution arrived years later, after Brand had relocated to Florida, built a massive online following, and spent years questioning establishment narratives on corporate media, public health, and institutional power.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones called Brand a "sexual predator" whose "strong desire for some form of sexual contact was indiscriminate and voracious," according to Breitbart. Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy said Brand "used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women," the Daily Caller reported. "As his profile grew, so too did his sense of entitlement."

The rape conviction stems from a 2009 incident: a woman who met Brand backstage at his comedy show said she consented to vaginal sex at his home but was then anally raped, the Post Millennial reported. Brand maintained the anal intercourse was consensual. He was also convicted of kissing and groping a woman at a London radio station in 2004–2005, sexually assaulting a woman at a birthday party at a London bar in 2004, and assaulting a woman during the recording of an advertisement in 2009.

He was acquitted of raping a woman at the 1999 Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth and of attempting to indecently assault a woman at MTV's London offices.

Judge Bennathan denied bail, citing flight risk. "I regret the hardship caused to the children, of course," Bennathan said, per the Dallas Morning News. "But the hardship has been caused by serious criminal offending by their father."

Breitbart noted that Court News UK placed Brand alongside Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, and Stuart Hall as BBC presenters convicted of sexual offenses. The comparison is telling. Savile was shielded by the BBC for decades while abusing hundreds. Brand was prosecuted after he left the fold and started attacking the institutions that once employed him.

The BBC reports Brand is also under investigation for additional rape allegations from two more women.

Brand closed his eyes as the rape verdict was read. As bail was denied, he gestured to his lawyers and repeated, "I'm good, I'm good, I'm good," before being taken into custody.

A jury weighed evidence and reached a verdict. That's the system working as designed. But when the system only mobilizes its full force after a public figure becomes an inconvenience to the people who run it, the message to anyone thinking about speaking out isn't subtle.