with the Attorney General. Brown eventually put Marjorie and Fred Meade on trial. The Meades were actually in New York City at the time of the grand jury indictments and originally intended not to participate in the California trial—libel was not an extraditable offense under New York state law. But Harrison, seeing an opportunity of a lifetime for front-page headlines, wanted to avoid a trial in absentia and encouraged the Meades to return to Los Angeles with defense attorney Arthur Crowley to plead their case. Crowley's strategy was simple: put subjects of Confidentials stories on the witness stand and ask them under oath if the stories were true. Film industry executives, who previously tried to convince Pat Brown to charge Robert Harrison with conspiracy to publish criminal libel, now tried to backpedal for fear of adverse publicity from what would be "heralded by the press as the 'Trial of a Hundred Stars'." But Brown would have none of it—on August 7, 1957, The People of the State of California v. Robert Harrison et al. trial began. It would eventually involve over 200 members of the film industry, most of whom fled California to avoid defense subpoenas. Rushmore, now the state's star witness, testified that the magazine knowingly published unverified allegations, despite the magazine's reputation for double-checking facts: "Some of the stories are true and some have nothing to back them up at all. Harrison many times overruled his libel attorneys and went ahead on something." According to Rushmore, Harrison told the attorneys, "I'd go out of business if I printed the kind of stuff you guys want." Rushmore even fingered Aline Mosby, who was in the press galleries covering the trial for the newspaper wire service called United Press. It was revealed that Mosby wrote more than 24 stories for Confidential. United Press replaced the disgraced Mosby with another reporter. During the trial, two witnesses for the defense unexpectedly died. Private detective Polly Gould was found dead in her apartment of disputed causes. She was a former investigator for Confidential and Whisper. The previous week, Mae West's alleged love interest in Confidentials "Mae West's Open Door Policy", Chalky Wright, was found dead in a bathtub before he could testify that the story was factual. Harrison's attorneys tried to give witnesses (who were also plaintiffs in other lawsuits against Harrison) a face-saving exit with token out-of-court settlements, such as the May