LAKE ELSINORE — When NASA agents swooped into a Lake Elsinore Denny’s earlier this year, authorities said they seized a purported “moon rock” from a woman who had been trying to sell it for $1.7 million.

What they didn’t mention — the woman was a 4-foot-11, 74-year-old grandmother who, along with her now-deceased husband, had worked at North American Rockwell, a NASA contractor during the early years of the space program.

Sitting at the dining room table in her modest Lake Elsinore home, Joann Davis said Monday that she has yet to be charged with a crime, though a NASA agent accused her of possession of stolen property. She said NASA agents found out she had the Apollo 11 moon rock — actually a speck of lunar material embedded in a decorative paperweight — because she emailed them to ask for advice about selling it.

The rock is rightfully hers, she said. It was one of many items of space-program memorabilia her husband received as gifts through his work, she said.

Davis said she couldn’t believe what happened to her at Denny’s May 19. She said she was treated roughly and interrogated for two hours outside the restaurant.

NASA Deputy Inspector General Gail Robinson said Monday that she could not comment on the investigation.

“The matter is still open and is still being considered,” she said.

Davis said she and her current husband went to the restaurant thinking they were meeting a broker who had some connection with NASA. But no sooner had she produced the rock than it was snatched out of her hand. Agents and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies rushed in, yanking her and her husband out of the booth, Davis said. She said it looked like a SWAT team.

“They dragged me out of Denny’s,” she said. “I was scared. Really scared.”

Davis said she was badly bruised and wasn’t allowed to use the restroom.

“I peed in my pants and I stood there dripping wet for over two hours,” she said. “I was so mad. Humiliated, but mad. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Davis said she has heard little from NASA since then, but has hired a lawyer and is considering legal action. An agent called to confirm that tests showed the rock is authentic, she said.

In an affidavit supporting the search warrant, NASA Special Agent Norman Conley supports Davis’ assertion that she contacted NASA. But he portrays her as then trying to sell the rock for “big money” on the sly without federal officials finding out.

Conley wrote in the affidavit that lunar material is considered a ‘national resource’ under federal law and is thus the property of the U.S. government.

Davis’s lawyer, Peter Schlueter, contends there is no law prohibiting the possession or sale of lunar rocks and said the portrayal of Davis by NASA is a fiction.

As for the way agents seized the rock, he said, “It’s reprehensible.”