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In April 1789, Jones was accused of raping a 10-year-old girl named Katerina Stepanova.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bell |first=Jacob |date=2019 |title="Я Тоже:" The Rape of Katerina Stepanova and John Paul Jones' Russian Legacy |url=https://pasttensejournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/past-tense-vol-7-spring-2019-2.pdf |journal=Past Tense: Graduate Review of History |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=33 |via=Past Tense Journal}}</ref> <!-- The original citation was unclear over the name of her father. The new citation is not.
Her father, however, is irrelevant to this sentence. She lived with her mother, who took care of her and began the legal proceedings. I have removed it and added her surname. -->This event is contentious among biographers, as John Paul Jones was a foreigner among the Russian court, threatening the power structure that existed at the times. Most biographers believe that Jones was framed as a way to remove him from power.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bell |first=Jacob |date=2019 |title="Я Тоже:" The Rape of Katerina Stepanova and John Paul Jones' Russian Legacy |url=https://pasttensejournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/past-tense-vol-7-spring-2019-2.pdf |journal=Past Tense: Graduate Review of History |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=45 |via=Past Tense Journal}}</ref>
She testified to the police that she had been summoned to his apartment to sell him butter, when he punched her in the face, gagged her with a white handkerchief, and vaginally penetrated her; a regimental surgeon and a midwife both examined her and found evidence to substantiate these physical and sexual assaults.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bell |first=Jacob |date=2019 |title="Я Тоже:" The Rape of Katerina Stepanova and John Paul Jones' Russian Legacy |url=https://pasttensejournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/past-tense-vol-7-spring-2019-2.pdf |journal=Past Tense: Graduate Review of History. |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=41 |via=Past Tense Journal}}</ref> There had been a delay on one day in reporting the rape, which meant the case would ordinarily not continue, due to Russian statutory codes considering any such delay evidence of consent, but Catherine intervened directly to allow the legal proceedings to continue.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bell |first=Jacob |date=2019 |title="Я Тоже:" The Rape of Katerina Stepanova and John Paul Jones' Russian Legacy |url=https://pasttensejournal.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/past-tense-vol-7-spring-2019-2.pdf |journal=Past Tense: Graduate Review of History |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=45 |via=Past Tense Journal}}</ref> Jones responded to the allegations by claiming that he had paid the girl for sex several times, denying that he had deprived her of her virginity, and suggesting she was older than 10.<ref>Charles King, ''Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams'' (W. W. Norton & Company, 2011; {{ISBN|0-393-07084-0}}), p. 47.</ref><!-- These phrases ("often frolicked", "a small cash payment") are unhelpful and downplay the severity of the accusation. He was accused of violently penetrating a 10 year old girl, of stunning her with punches, and of threatening to kill her if she told anyone.
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