FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) _ An expectant mother who says she was accused of hiding a basketball under her dress has filed a $600,000 suit against the store that alleged she was shoplifting.

One day before she gave birth, Betsy Nelson said, she went to Irving’s Sport Shop last February to look for a rowing machine to help her get back in shape after the birth.

When Mrs. Nelson, 33, didn’t find what she wanted, she sent browsing in an adjacent mall, only to be confronted by the store’s assistant manager, Richard Hoye, and a security guard.

A cashier had told her supervisor that Mrs. Nelson had stolen a basketball and put it under her dress, said Stephen McCarron, Mrs. Nelson’s lawyer.

According to the lawsuit filed last week in Arlington Circuit Court, Mrs. Nelson was detained at the store for about 30 minutes and was given the option of opening her dress or going to the police station.

″I had to disrobe in front of six male security guards and police officers in the store,″ Mrs. Nelson said in a telephone interview Thursday with The Washington Post. ″I had to take off my jacket, sweater and lift up my blouse.″

McCarron said Mrs. Nelson was ″given the impression she would be taken to jail if she didn’t do it. ... She started to cry. She was very upset, very distraught.″

Mrs. Nelson went into labor shortly after the incident and gave birth the next day to a healthy baby boy, Darius.

In the suit, Mrs. Nelson claims she was falsely accused of shoplifting and subjected to ″great mental pain and suffering, insult, indignities, humiliation and serious emotional harm.″

Store officials declined to comment on the lawsuit.