Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld

by T.J. English

In November 1938, at the age of twenty-two, Sinatra was arrested on a charge of “seduction.” It happened while he was performing at the Rustic Cabin, a club in New Jersey, while sitting with his fiancée, Nancy Barbato, a local Hoboken girl. While Sinatra was on a break, two cops came into the club and cuffed the young singer. The arrest warrant stated that Frank Sinatra, “being then and there a single man over the age of eighteen years, under the promise of marriage, did then and there have sexual intercourse with the said complainant who was then and there a single female of good repute for chastity whereby she became pregnant.” The headline in the Jersey Observer read: “Songbird Held in Morals Charge.”