Local press coverage of his arrest and trial gave him colorful, alliterative nicknames, including the Ding Dong Daddy of the D-car Line, the Trolley Toreador, and the Car Barn Casanova.

[8] Reportedly, he had been discovered asleep and unharmed one morning in the cage of a lion named "Old Mary" during his 14-year career with the Ringling Brothers Circus.

[7] Mabel was described as a beautiful redhead who worked as an artist's model and sideshow performer,[9] but Van Wie claimed she "wasn't particularly pretty and we just drifted apart.

On January 23, 1945, the police announced they were looking for Van Wie, who the press dubbed the "Carline Casanova", for three bigamy warrants and possible impersonation of authority, as one of his wives reported he was away from home so much "because he was an FBI man."

[14] His bigamy was discovered after Voloshin (then thought to be his fifth wife) filed a suit for divorce; she then learned that he had married two times in 1944 alone.

[7] Van Wie was arrested by police for bigamy on January 25, 1945, in Los Angeles, acting on a tip from an alert guard who "wondered how a little guy like that could marry so many women";[7] at the time, he was charged with having nine wives, although records indicated he had been married as many as twelve times since 1913, having divorced one wife, annulled another marriage, and survived the death of a third.

Van Wie said he couldn't "imagine any of [my wives] being that mad at me" and added that he was married so often simply because he was unfailingly polite and "the [conductor's] hat that did it.

[21] The defense fund paid for his bail and his stay in Room 707 of the Padre Hotel, where he resided while awaiting his court date.

[22] On February 1 Van Wie said he would change his plea to guilty and ask for probation;[23] Judge Cunningham instead held him over for trial on three counts of bigamy, increasing his bail to US$3,000 cash or US$7,500 bond, remarking that since it was unlikely he could afford that amount, "it would be wise, perhaps, if he spent some days in jail, for some serious thinking.

[33][34] During his insanity trial, he testified that his latest (twelfth or thirteenth) wife, Evelyn Brown, was the "only real love of [his] life"[35] and his defense relied on several incidents of head trauma due to a mule kick, an axe blow, and a fall from a smokestack.

"[32] Van Wie served two years at San Quentin State Prison before he was paroled and released on April 12, 1947,[10][42] after good behavior and a plea for leniency from Judge Kaufman.

[43] In September 1949, he was married again (for the fourteenth time) to Mrs. Mary Aba by Judge Kaufman,[44] who previously had asked that Van Wie abstain from marriage for five years as a condition of his release.

[46] He was arrested a week later for bigamy while appearing in the show "My True Love Life", staged at the El Rey burlesque theater in Oakland.

When he was arrested, Van Wie blurted "All I can say—" onstage before his attorney escorted him to waiting police officers,[47] and he was forced to stand trial again.