Bondage Collection Released to Woman : Evidence: Self-described dominatrix, 57, had been arrested on suspicion of prostitution but the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute.

Sheriff’s officials on Thursday returned a collection of whips, harnesses, ropes, chains and leather clothing to a 57-year-old San Clemente woman and self-described dominatrix.

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Betty Johnson Davis was arrested in February on suspicion of prostitution stemming from a bondage parlor she operated at her condominium. The district attorney’s office declined to prosecute for lack of evidence.

Davis accused the Sheriff’s Department of refusing to return the $20,000 in bondage equipment and jewelry seized when investigators raided her home. But Lt. Steve Carroll said Thursday that Davis has been free to retrieve her equipment since mid-May when the lead investigator on the case signed paperwork to release it.

“There was no hold on it,” Carroll said. “All she had to do was pick it up.”

Thomas S. Tanana, a San Diego attorney representing Davis, said he was only notified last week that the belongings could be released.

Davis said Thursday that she has received calls from television and movie agents interested in developing projects about the dominatrix lifestyle.

Davis said she wanted to “educate the public that it’s safe and sane.”

“It’s role-playing, but there’s no sex,” Davis said.

But she said she does not plan to resume the practice at her ocean-view condominium on Vista Encanta.

A Sheriff’s Department property-room clerk said that Davis had to make two trips with a pickup truck to haul away the collection, which included racks, a bench and other accouterments.

Tanana publicized the event, during which Davis demonstrated how to crack a small whip.

Davis, who said she has 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, is known as “The Mistress of the Lash” and “Mistress Brandy” in a specialty bondage magazine.

Davis said that her clients were screened by mail before being accepted. They were then met at a predetermined spot and blindfolded before being driven to her condominium. They were returned to their vehicle in the same manner and would generally leave an envelope with money at her home.

The Sheriff’s Department first learned of Davis in late 1993 when another San Clemente woman told investigators that Davis was running a bondage parlor in her townhouse. A month later, deputies were called to the home after a 53-year-old male client, who was strapped to a wall, died of asphyxiation from a metal chain around his neck during a bondage act.

Tanana said that the coroner’s office ruled the death as accidental.

Davis was arrested on suspicion of prostitution after an undercover officer answered an ad in a sexually explicit magazine.