True crime media: Frank Sinatra's 1938 mugshot

He do be kinda hot

There is no damn way he isn’t Ronan Farrow’s father...

His ears have nothing to do with each other, they look so different, sorry Im kinda drunk

In 1938, long before he found fame, a 23-year-old Frank Sinatra was arrested in Bergen County, N.J. on charges of "seduction and adultery." According to the FBI reports, "On the second and ninth days of November 1938 at the Borough of Lodi" and "under the promise of marriage" Sinatra "did then and there have sexual intercourse with the said complainant, who was then and there a single female of good repute." This, the charge stated, was "contrary and in violation of the revised statute of 1937." The charges were later dismissed when it was determined that the woman involved was married.

Frank Sinatra was again arrested on a morals charge when an old girlfriend accused him of a breach of promise. The case was dismissed in court in January 1939.

Now, when I first saw the mugshot I was like "uh, yum!" And when I saw the charges, I thought it was hilarious. But the more I thought about it, the more I'm starting to wonder if "seduction" isn't 1930's euphemism for date rape. The charges make it sound like she willingly had sex with him under the promise of marriage...which I can't prove didn't happen. But it's only recently that we have recognized date rape or marital rape as actual rape. A notable example of this is Clark Gable and Loretta Young. Young and Gable conceived their daughter, Judy, in 1935 during the filming of The Call of the Wild. From Wikipedia:

In 2015, Linda Lewis, the wife of Young's son, Christopher, stated publicly that in 1998, a then-85-year-old Young had told Lewis that Gable had raped her. According to Linda Lewis, Young added that no consensual intimate contact had occurred between Gable and herself. Young had never disclosed the rape to anyone. According to Lewis, Young shared this information only after learning of the concept of date rape from watching Larry King Live; she had previously believed it was a woman's job to fend off men's amorous advances and had perceived her inability to thwart Gable's attack as a moral failing on her part. Linda Lewis said that the family remained silent about Young's rape claim until after both Young and Judy Lewis had died.

Supporting this theory is an allegation in the book. Sinatra: The Life. Sinatra "raped one woman and pushed another through a plate glass window when she refused to do it."

So what do you guys think?

He was a thug who could sing.

I doubt it was date rape. This might have been a time and place where having an affair was a criminal offense. To be brought up on charges of breaking a martial promise I think sets the tone of how life was back then. When my grandmother died, we all (me my cousins, aunts and uncles) learned that our grandfather had been married before he married her. It just wasn't talked about because they had it annulled after only a few months. This would have been the early '50s..

I just think it was a different time back then and being accused of seduction was probably to save the woman's good name, since it was learned she was married.

Frankie was a gangster with a golden voice. I've never found him attractive but 'In The Wee Small Hours' it's one of my favourite albums of all time.