A hardworking pillar of the community says his life was ruined after asking a mother on a motorized shopping cart for help while visiting Walmart.
Mahendra Patel, known to loved ones as Mick, was arrested by SWAT and hurled in prison for nearly two months over a March 18 encounter with Caroline Miller, 27, at a Walmart store in Acworth, Georgia.
Now, Patel says he plans to sue the county for $25 million.
Miller stands accused of concocting an unfounded tale of child abduction that saw Patel, a 57-year-old father of two, falsely branded a pedophile and fear for his life in jail, while a district attorney’s blunders made his ordeal drag on.
Patel, an engineer-turned-landlord, says he was on the hunt for slow-release Tylenol for his elderly mother when he asked Miller, who was riding a motorized shopping cart in the store with her children, for help.
‘I saw this woman in a motorized scooter,’ Patel told the Daily Mail. ‘And I certainly thought right away that she’s handicapped with two kids. When I approach her, I ask her, “I’m looking for Tylenol, do you know where it is?”
‘”Yeah, I’ll be happy to help,” she said. I started following her. And in fact, I told her that you can just point me. You don’t need to come there.’
Patel says Miller appeared to be having problems with the motorized shopping cart, which kept stalling.
Mahendra Patel is pictured walking into Walmart in Acworth, Georgia, on March 18 this year
Caroline Miller (pictured) went on TV to claim Patel had tried to abduct her two-year-old son
‘A couple of times I told her, “Don’t worry about, just show me where it is.” But she was still taking me along,’ he continued.
‘And then when she come to a corner, we were turning right. When she turned, she clipped that corner and I felt one of her kids was going to fall. So I instinctively I grabbed the kid. Prevented him from falling down the floor.
‘When she had a grip over the kid, I handed over to her.
‘I quickly told her that, you know, thank you. Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry if I scared you. And I said, I’ll find another employee and don’t worry.’
Surveillance camera footage appears to show Patel’s attempt to stop Miller’s son Jude from falling to the floor. But days later, Miller appeared on TV to claim that Patel had only asked for help finding the Tylenol to distract her so he could try and abduct her 2-year-old son Jude.
Miller told WSB-TV: ‘When I pointed my arm out this way to say this is where it was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on Jude, and grabbed him out of my lap.
‘I’m like, “No, no, not a, what are you doing?” He pulled him. I pulled him back. We’re tug of warring.’
Miller claimed Patel fled the store, saying: ‘Before we could do anything, he was gone.’
Patel denied the allegations, telling the Daily Mail that, after he returned Jude to his mother’s lap, Miller ‘was pointing towards the Tylenol.’
Surveillance camera footage appears to show Patel’s attempt to stop Miller’s son Jude from falling to the floor
Miller, pictured by the Daily Mail in May, was using the motorized shopping cart the day of the March incident
Miller told WSB-TV: ‘When I pointed my arm out this way to say this is where it was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on Jude, and grabbed him out of my lap’
‘And I didn’t see her visibly scared or upset or nothing,’ he said. ‘It was a very brief couple of seconds interaction. I hand the kid back to her and that was it.
‘There was no tug of war. In fact, there was another guy in that aisle pretty close by. We didn’t argue. We weren’t loud or anything.’
He claimed that Miller had even given him a ‘thumbs up’ after he’d found the medicine and held it up to show her, before walking away.
Surveillance footage showed Miller looking relaxed as she continued to shop while Patel paid for his Tylenol and exited.
Patel said he thought nothing more of the encounter, until three days later, when his car was surrounded by a police SWAT team as he drove home from work.
‘They’re calmly driving behind and then I go maybe 100 yards or so. No lights.
‘They accelerated and they cornered me. All the three cars surrounded me. They got out of the car with a gun pointing at me and said, hey, drop the keys. So I pull over. I’m like, “Oh my God, they’re after me.”
‘And still I had no idea. I was thinking, “Any wrong move and I could be dead here.” I was so panicked.’
Patel was cuffed as he lay on the ground, lifted by his collar and put into the back of a police SUV.
He was so stressed, his blood pressure rose to dangerously high levels, forcing cops to take him to a local emergency room. There, they handcuffed him to a bed as he pleaded for medicine for his hypertension.
Patel was taken to jail after his blood pressure returned to normal.
Surveillance footage showed Miller looking relaxed as she continued to shop
Patel was accused of fleeing the store after, but was filmed paying for his Tylenol and exiting
Miller is pictured going to the supermarket in May
He recalled being told he was charged with kidnapping: ‘My heart just stopped.’
‘Kidnapping. I started shaking. I was like, oh my God.
‘I was scared to my death. I was scared for my life and death.
‘I had no idea. And because, you know, kidnapping charges in Georgia carry a life sentence.’
Quickly realizing that the charge he faced could see him targeted by other inmates, Patel kept his head down while his friend Melanie Bolling got to work alerting his family and planning a fightback.
Meanwhile, the lack of vegetarian food saw Patel lose 17 pounds during his 46-day stint in jail.
But the worse was to come. Miller’s TV appearance had been seen by an inmate who was booked after Patel – and word got around the jail that he was a suspected child snatcher.
‘Next morning, the new inmates come in,’ Patel said. ‘And one of the guys, right in front of 10, 15 people, said I saw this man. He tried to kidnap a small child.’
‘Next thing you know, everyone had found out that I’m accused of kidnapping,’ he added.
‘From that point onwards I couldn’t sleep at night. I would wake up from having a nightmare. Multiple times. People want to jump on you because of anything to do with kids.’
Patel branded Miller ‘evil’ and said: ‘She made the whole thing worse by going on television.’
Patel (pictured at a court hearing in May) said he thought nothing more of the encounter, until three days later, when his car was surrounded by a police SWAT team as he drove home from work
Patel (pictured before he was arrested) lost 17 pounds in prison and feared for his life
Back in the outside world, he says his family was being harassed.
His lookalike brother was unable to leave the house over fear he’d be mistaken for Patel. His two daughters – one pursuing an MBA at Columbia, the other training to be a doctor at the Mayo Clinic – were both beside themselves with worry about their father.
But a glimmer of hope for the family came when they hired Ashleigh Merchant, a defense attorney convinced of Patel’s innocence.
She was the one who uncovered the smoking gun: the Walmart surveillance footage. Despite the seemingly contradictory tape, however, Cobb County District Attorney Sonya Allen refused to free Patel.
He spent three more weeks in prison, and was finally granted bond in May. The charges against Patel were only dropped in August.
It later emerged Allen had not shown the Walmart surveillance footage when seeking a grand jury indictment against Patel, claiming technical difficulties.
Her failure to do so is now set to cost Cobb County dear, with Patel intending to sue for $25 million for libel and slander, false arrest, invasion of privacy, emotional distress and other damages, according to local news outlet WSB-TV.
Allen’s office released a statement claiming it was ‘satisfied the ends of justice have been met’ and ‘pleased to have facilitated a resolution and encouraged by the willingness of both parties to engage in a constructive dialogue.’
Allen’s office added that the charges were dropped because Miller and Patel ‘wanted to put the incident behind them.’
But Patel insisted the DA’s statement was misleading and said he demanded an apology and justice from Miller and the officials who prosecuted him.
‘The people in power, including police and all, when they make a mistake instead of rectifying the mistake, they double down, triple down,’ Patel said.
It later emerged Allen had not shown the Walmart surveillance footage when seeking a grand jury indictment against Patel, claiming technical difficulties
Patel’s lawyers noted that Miller has previously sued other companies. She went on TV after claiming she had been raped by a driver working for ride-share company Lyft
He told the Daily Mail of how his property business was badly damaged by his time in jail, with invoices left unpaid and tenants going without hot water because he was unable to help them.
‘I repeatedly demanded a public apology from all the parties that did the wrong thing to me,’ Patel explained. ‘Nobody did anything.’
He added: ‘They indicted me. They denied giving me a bond they dropped charges silently, and they think that this thing should go away. No, justice has not been served.
‘This is not about me anymore. This affects far beyond one person,’ Patel said. ‘it affects your families, friends, acquaintances…
‘My wife, she has a heart problem. She would not speak to anybody for a long time.
‘She would go out of a house even to do basic shopping… My daughter who is in medical school started failing her classes.’
Patel’s lawyers noted that Miller has previously sued other companies. She went on TV after claiming she had been raped by a driver working for ride-share company Lyft.
‘This looks like it’s a full-time job she’s doing,’ Patel alleged of Miller’s accusations against corporations.
He added: ‘My advice to her is karma, what goes around comes around. And go find a real job in life.
‘Stop putting your kids on national TV. They are not your toys. If you genuinely worried about your kids, you should be protecting them, not showing up on a national TV.’
Miller did not respond to the Daily Mail’s repeated requests for comment.
The Daily Mail repeatedly reached out to both the Acworth Police Department and the Cobb County District Attorney.
The City of Acworth said it could not comment on pending litigation.
