Atlanta
CNN
—
Mahendra Patel was looking for Tylenol in a Georgia Walmart two months ago when he encountered a woman with two children – riding a motorized cart she was driving – and asked her for help to find the medication, his lawyer says.
What happened next, the woman would allege, was that Patel grabbed her 2-year-old son from her, and she pulled the child back. A grand jury would later indict Patel on charges including attempted kidnapping – accusations for which he’s been jailed in Georgia’s Cobb County without bond for more than 40 days.
But Patel has a different explanation, which his lawyer says is backed by surveillance video: He was just trying to make sure the boy didn’t fall from the scooter, which the lawyer claims had just clipped a store display.
“The surveillance video is very clear that this was not a kidnapping, or attempted kidnapping,” Patel’s lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, told CNN.
“There was no struggle. There was nothing like that,” Merchant said.
With a bond hearing set for Tuesday, Merchant argues her client is innocent, partly citing the video that she subpoenaed from Walmart and shared with media outlets including CNN.
CNN has attempted to reach the accuser, Caroline Miller, who previously has spoken publicly about the incident, for comment. When reached by phone, a family member told CNN that Miller declined to comment on the case.
Here’s what the video shows, what the accuser and authorities allege, and what Patel’s defense attorney says:
Video of the main interaction
The incident happened March 18 at a Walmart in the Cobb County city of Acworth, roughly 30 miles northwest of downtown Atlanta, Acworth police said. The security camera footage shows Patel entering the store and eventually encountering Miller on a motorized cart scooter with two children, one in her lap and one at her feet. There is no audio.
The video shows Patel, generally with his back to the camera, speaking with Miller. Patel asked her whether she knew where the Tylenol would be, Merchant and Miller have said.
Eventually, as the cart moves in front of a display separating two aisles and Patel walks alongside her, Patel appears to reach toward Miller’s lap. Patel appears to briefly take something into his arms and lift, but Miller appears to reach back. The disposition of the cart and the boy before Patel’s reach – including whether the child might have been falling and whether the cart clipped anything – is indiscernible because Patel’s back obscures both from the camera.
A man nearby – standing at the end of the aisle behind Patel and Miller – turns around and looks toward the scooter for a few seconds shortly after Patel’s reach, but does not intervene and eventually turns back, the video shows. CNN has attempted to contact this person for comment.
Quickly after Miller reaches back, the child is seen in her lap and Patel takes a few steps away. Miller gestures to somewhere in the distance, and Patel walks off camera in that direction.
Miller, in a March interview with CNN affiliate TV station WSB, gave this description of Patel’s reach: “When I pointed my arm out this way to point it to the direction of where (the Tylenol) was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on (the boy), and grabbed him out of my lap.”
It happened quickly, she said. “I’m like, ‘No, no … what are you doing?’ He pulled him,” Miller told WSB. “I pulled him back. We’re tug-of-warring.”
Merchant, however, asserts that the scooter had “clipped the corner” of the display, and Patel reacted to safeguard the boy. “He’s never denied that he leaned in to try to help and make sure the child didn’t fall,” Merchant told CNN.
“There’s no tug-of-war. It’s … a split second,” Merchant said. “There’s definitely no battery, no assault, nothing like that at all.”
Miller, besides not responding to CNN’s request for comment, did not respond to WSB’s request to comment on the surveillance video last month when Merchant publicized it, WSB reported.
The Cobb County district attorney’s office declined CNN’s request for comment on the case. CNN has sought comment from the Acworth Police Department.
After Patel walks away, Miller moves her scooter to the aisle where the other man is, and backs it into a product display, a different camera shows. Miller and this other man talk for a few seconds before the other child leaves the foot of the scooter and the scooter moves forward into the child’s leg. The man appears to briefly lift the scooter away from the child’s leg, the child gets back on the scooter, and Miller eventually motors away.
Seconds later, Patel reappears behind Miller. Miller looks back at Patel, then at the other man, and motors forward. Patel and the man talk for about 15 seconds, and Patel walks away from him and past Miller, surveillance video shows.
About four minutes after Patel’s initial encounter with Miller, another video shows Patel walk by her in the store again, and he shows her something in his hand. According to Merchant, it’s Tylenol that he found. Miller makes a few gestures – including a “thumbs-up” sign, according to Merchant – and he walks away.
Two minutes after that, video shows Miller talking to a Walmart employee. At roughly the same time, another camera captures Patel paying for the Tylenol.
On his way out of the store, Patel stops to talk with a different Walmart employee. They talk for more than 20 seconds.
Police respond, and Patel is arrested
Miller told a Walmart employee “a man ask(ed) her (where) the Tylenol was and as she was helping him he tried to grab her child and she quickly grabbed the child back,” a Walmart assistant manager said as part of an incident report compiled by the store. Walmart provided the report when it was subpoenaed by Merchant, who provided it to CNN.
Miller called police, according to the Walmart report. Some time later, Acworth police responded to the store.
“Officers spoke with the mother and witnesses and learned that the suspect approached her and asked a question about Tylenol,” Acworth police said in a news release on Facebook. “The suspect then grabbed the juvenile and attempted to pull the child away from the mother. The mother was able to break away with the juvenile and the suspect fled the area. The juvenile was not injured during the incident.”
Three days later, Patel was arrested, with investigators having reviewed security footage and talked to witnesses, according to police.
Walmart declined to comment on the incident itself, but released a statement saying it was cooperating with the investigation and that “customer and associate safety is a top priority.”
“We will continue to work with police and defer any additional questions to them,” Walmart’s statement reads.
No bond, and Patel is indicted
Patel has not had a probable cause hearing, but the Cobb County district attorney’s office took the case to a grand jury, which indicted him, according to Merchant.
The grand jury indicted Patel on April 3 on charges of criminal attempt to commit kidnapping, simple assault and simple battery, according to court documents.
“He is still in jail, because essentially, the state won’t agree – the district attorney – won’t agree to a bond, and we haven’t been able to get in front of a judge,” Merchant said.
With a bond hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Patel is set to remain at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center at least until then.
In a Change.org petition calling for charges against Patel to be dropped, he is called a “community pillar” who has contributed to the growth and development of his Indian-American community.
Merchant said Patel’s incarceration has been hard on his family, including his two daughters and his mother.
“It’s absolutely been awful,” Merchant said. “It’s really, really been difficult on them because they can’t keep up with their business and caring for his elderly mom.”
CNN’s Nick Valencia contributed to this report.
