For Mahendra “Mick” Patel, 2025 will at all times be the 12 months his life turned the wrong way up.
What started as an errand for his aged mom in March devolved into an attempted kidnapping accusation, forcing the 57-year-old father to abandon his actual property enterprise and leaving his household determined to discover a method to clear his identify.
Instead of preparing for a summer time full of household holidays and celebrations, he sat inside a Georgia jail cell and racked his mind: How may what he perceived to be an harmless change between two strangers at a Walmart retailer flip into felony fees?
Patel’s prior run-ins with the regulation paled in comparability to the monthslong upheaval he was about to expertise – now he was swept into the ranks of Americans who say they have been wrongfully accused of a crime.
It was mid-March when Patel ventured off after dinner to a Walmart retailer in Cobb County, simply northwest of Atlanta. As he walked the aisles, he noticed a girl driving a motorized cart and thought she may assist him discover some Tylenol.
And so she did.
The girl, Caroline Miller, 26, sat on the cart along with her 2-year-old son on her lap, and an older little one was sitting on the cart’s footwell. As the two adults engaged in dialog, the scooter clipped a retailer show and Patel observed the toddler regarded like he was about to fall – off the scooter and his mom’s lap.
What occurred subsequent left Patel and Miller with a completely different understanding of the interplay.
Patel stated he reached out to ensure that the boy wouldn’t fall. Meanwhile, Miller claimed the man grabbed her son out of her lap when she raised her hand to level in the path of the Tylenol.
“I’m like, ‘No, no … what are you doing?’ He pulled him,” Miller advised NCS affiliate WSB in March. “I pulled him back. We’re tug-of-warring.”
NCS has made a number of makes an attempt to communicate with Miller. When reached by cellphone, her father declined to remark.
Patel, a retired engineer and father of two, left the retailer inside a jiffy after paying for the Tylenol. He didn’t give the encounter a second thought till three days later when he was handcuffed on the aspect of a Georgia freeway.
He had been charged with legal try to commit kidnapping, easy assault and easy battery.
“They (police officers) said ‘we have a warrant against you,’ and that’s it, they took me to jail,” Patel stated.
His time behind bars depleted his physique and examined his power
For 47 days, Patel endured authorized proceedings, a lack of vitamin and violent threats whereas being held with out bond in jail, he stated.
Patel went from being his personal boss and a board member of a world group of volunteers devoted to serving kids to spending his days and nights at the Cobb County Jail amongst individuals accused or convicted of violent crimes.
His physique rapidly felt the pressure of his new environment. First, he didn’t have treatment to deal with his hypertension for a number of days and later, he misplaced a minimum of 17 kilos as a result of he would solely eat milk, rice, beans and peanut butter due to a lack of vegetarian choices.
With his spouse out of city on work, his two grownup daughters residing states away and his non-English-speaking aged mom at residence unaware he was behind bars, no members of the family visited.
Detention wasn’t new to him. He had been in jail as soon as before and labored to rebuild his life after.
In 2013, Patel pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy fees after he used his IT connections from his time as an engineer in a plot to affect the bidding course of for a pc venture with the Atlanta Public School system. He was additionally arrested on suspicion of DUI twenty years in the past, courtroom data present.
Serving six months in federal jail in reference to the conspiracy fees, Patel stated, was “a completely sobering experience” and led him to concentrate on slowly increasing his actual property enterprise, reasonably than chasing the “next big thing in life.”
This time was so completely different.
It felt like a one-way ticket to jail with no promise of ever getting out, and the atmosphere throughout confinement was marred by a fixed barrage of threats to his life, which nearly broke him.
Some detainees threatened to beat him in the showers and others demanded cash in change for their safety whereas in jail, Patel stated. Afraid for his wellbeing, he stated he contemplated asking for protecting custody, and different inmates advised him he’d typically get up at night time screaming “get off me!”
From a whole lot of miles away in Texas, Patel’s finest good friend of practically 45 years wouldn’t let him hand over on himself and warned him of the impression solitary confinement may have on him.
“I told him, ‘don’t do it, you will go crazy,’” his good friend, Hasmukh Patel, stated of the cellphone calls they shared throughout that point.
Patel crammed his days and weeks with meditation, studying spiritual texts like the Bhagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s most vital texts. He even attended Bible research with different inmates, hoping it might assist him refocus his thoughts whereas he maintained his innocence.
In early May, practically two months after he was detained, Patel held onto the hope a compilation of safety footage from the Walmart retailer would debunk the accusation maintaining him behind bars.
“There’s no tug-of-war. It’s … a split second,” his legal professional, Ashleigh Merchant, stated at the time. “There’s definitely no battery, no assault, nothing like that at all.”
In the audio-less and considerably grainy footage, introduced by Merchant at a bond listening to, Patel is seen getting into the retailer and ultimately encountering Miller, who was driving the cart.
A Georgia man went to a Walmart to purchase Tylenol. He was later charged with tried kidnapping
While Patel’s again obscures half of what is occurring, the video exhibits they have been turning into an aisle when the cart clipped the nook of a show. Then, Patel briefly takes one thing into his arms and lifts, however Miller seems to attain again. Quickly after, the little one will be seen on her lap whereas Patel takes a few steps away. Miller gestures someplace in the distance, and Patel walks off digicam in that path.
About six minutes later, the video exhibits Patel paying for his buy and strolling out of the retailer after pausing to communicate with an worker for greater than 20 seconds.
When the safety footage was made public, the scrutiny Patel felt become assist. That day in courtroom, he was launched on a $10,000 bond and greater than 90,000 individuals had signed a petition declaring his innocence.
Three extra months had handed when Patel’s authorized battle got here to a screeching halt in August as prosecutors entered a movement to dismiss his case, successfully dropping the fees, courtroom data present.
“Imagine (if) there was no camera in this Walmart … no proof,” Patel stated. “What would happen to my life, literally … attempted kidnapping carries lifetime prison (sentence), 25 years … my kids would never, my wife would never see me again.”
Reflecting on the case, Merchant beforehand advised NCS she credited Patel’s launch solely to the Walmart surveillance footage and warned about hasty police work.
“Our system needs to be aware that innocent people are falsely accused on a daily basis and without police willing to investigate before rushing to judgement, judges willing to release people on bond while awaiting an investigation, and prosecutors willing to provide transparency with evidence, this will continue to happen,” the legal professional continued.
NCS has reached out to Acworth Police for touch upon the dismissal of the case.
“We talk about innocent until proven guilty all the time…I don’t believe that,” Patel stated. “I don’t believe for a second if you tell me that, because once you get accused, not even convicted, your life turns upside down.”
Patel and his household have been in a position to relaxation simply when the fees have been dropped, however harm had already been completed. The accusation had prompted many individuals to condemn him, together with his personal South Asian group, and the reminiscence would linger.
While in jail, his household “was just lost” from the burden of dealing with group members and strangers. Patel’s niece took her father’s automotive keys and urged him to keep away from public areas as a result of she was afraid somebody with ailing intentions would mistake the brothers, which routinely occurred.
Another of Patel’s brothers, who lives in Mississippi, was bombarded with calls from individuals in the tight-knit South Asian group who have been interested by the incident.
The unfavourable public consideration to his identify left a mark on his enterprise and charitable work. His tenants stopped paying hire, Patel stated, and a group group lower ties with him by terminating his membership and eradicating him from its board of administrators.
“Our life is dramatically changed,” he stated reflecting months after his launch. “We were living a quiet life with the family…I never was online … and now everybody knows me.”
“My record is always going to be on (the) internet, even though the court is going to expunge all my records,” he stated.
Over the summer time, as his case was nonetheless pending in courtroom, Patel attended the weddings, engagements and reunions of a number of kin and associates. But these events of pleasure and celebration have been partly spoiled by fixed questions and stares.
Those reminders have let up, Patel stated, however nonetheless persist. When he’s approached by individuals, Patel stated he retains the dialog quick and encourages them to kind their very own opinion by looking for his case on Google.
“I don’t really care what people judge me for,” he stated. “I don’t live my life that way anyway.”
And whereas no quantity of cash could make up for what he went by way of, Patel has determined to take authorized motion, looking for $25 million in damages from the City of Acworth for alleged libel, slander, negligence, false imprisonment, emotional misery and extra, in accordance to an ante litem discover despatched to the metropolis in September outlining his intent to sue.
Under Georgia code, such discover should be filed prior to submitting a lawsuit.
In the discover, Patel claims the Acworth Police Department pushed for a fast indictment, stopping him from difficult the accusations early and main to an indictment based mostly on restricted proof. Those actions delayed his capacity to get a bond and finally stored him in custody longer, in accordance to the discover.
Acworth Mayor Tommy Allegood and the metropolis’s Board of Aldermen reviewed the discover in September and voted to deny “any and all liability” associated to Patel’s declare, an legal professional on behalf of metropolis officers stated in a letter despatched to Patel’s legal professional. In a assertion to NCS, Allegood declined to touch upon the case “due to potential for litigation” and shared the letter from the metropolis.
When Patel displays on his actions that night time at Walmart, it’s practically not possible to separate his selections from his identification and cultural background. His South Asian heritage, deeply rooted in values and non secular teachings, facilities in the perception that caring for others strengthens group bonds.
“I won’t say I changed my behavior,” he stated. “I would be careful. But knowing me, who I am, I help people.”