Law&Crime Sidebar - Walmart Surveillance Proves Jailed Man Didn’t Try to Kidnap Child: Lawyer

Episode Date: May 4, 2025

Mahendra Patel, 56, is behind bars without bond in Georgia after a woman accused him of trying to kidnap her child inside a Walmart store. Patel maintains he asked the woman where to find Tylenol and says there was never a so-called “tug-of-war” over the toddler. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber spoke to attorney Ashleigh Merchant, who says surveillance video from inside the store proves her client is innocent.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:High blood pressure kills silently. Fight back with 120/Life. A daily drink to help lower BP naturally. See results in 2 weeks or your money back. https://www.120life.com/products/120-life-free-shipping?code_bp=SIDEBAR — Code Sidebar saves 15%.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. George Mann is sitting behind bars right now accused of trying to kidnap a toddler at Walmart, but his attorney claims that newly released surveillance footage tells a very different story. We have the video. We reviewed every frame, and we're going to speak with the man's attorney, Ashley Merchant, who says this was no crime, but a terrible misunderstanding. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime.

I'm Jesse Weber. What began as a routine trip to Walmart for Tylenol has left a man jailed for nearly a month. Mahendra Patel is accused of trying to kidnap a toddler inside the store. The thing about this is surveillance footage that we've obtained is now challenging the official narrative, raising questions about whether or not there is an innocent man behind bars. So I want to take you back to the day that this all apparently went down, and there are two very different versions of this story. So on March 18th, Caroline Miller, mother of two,

was shopping at a Walmart on Cobb Parkway in Ackworth, Georgia. This is outside of Atlanta. I want you to take a look at this surveillance footage from inside the store. So Miller is riding a motorized cart with her four-year-old daughter at her feet, and her two-year-old son in her lap. Now, she later told police that a stranger, and that's the man you see in the gray shirt there, 56-year-old Mahendra Patel, approached her under the guise of asking where to find Tylenol before allegedly trying to snatch her child. Now, according to a press release from the Akworth Police Department, it reads, quote, officers spoke with the mother and witnesses and learned that the suspect approached her and asked a question about Tylenol. 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. So Miller claimed that this tug of war ensued with Patel attempting to pull her son out of her arms before she was able to fight him off. And this is what she told WSBTV in Atlanta back in March. When I pointed my arm out this way to point to the direction of where the Tylenol was, that is when he reached down, put both of his hands on my child and grabbed him out of my lap. I'm like, no, no, no. What are you doing? What are you doing? He pulled him. I pulled him back. We're tug of warring. Now, shortly after this encounter, she reported the incident to a Walmart

employee. And you can see her speaking with a worker on the surveillance footage. And what happens three days later? Patel was arrested in charge with attempted kidnapping, simple battery, and simple assault. But this is where the story takes a turn. Why? Patel's attorney, Ashley Merchant, she says that this surveillance footage, shows a very different story. And really, it's just one of a misunderstanding, not malice. Now, Ashley, who we're going to chat within a minute, provided us with segments of Walmart surveillance footage, which she claims contradicts Miller's account.

Now, we watched through the footage and saw everything from when Patel enters the store, right up to the interaction, the aftermath, and I want to take you through it, and you can decide for yourself what you think might have happened here. So at around 8.16 p.m., you can see Mahendra Patel enter the wall. Walmart. Three minutes later, at 8.19 p.m. Patel emerges from an aisle, scanning the shelves, presumably searching for Tylenol, and after a brief look around, he ducks back into the aisle. Moments later, he reappears, still seemingly searching for the meds. The next time he appears from that aisle is when he spots Caroline Miller in a motorized scooter with her two young

children. Patel, on tape, appears to approach Miller, according to Merchant, to ask about the Tylenol, and the two talk briefly before he steps back, allowing her to guide him toward the correct aisle, and as they turn into the aisle, something happens. The angle kind of obscures the interaction, but Miller claims that is when Patel tried to grab her son, but the footage doesn't seem to show a struggle, right? Until claims he was just trying to prevent her son from falling off the scooter. Now, Miller points Patel toward the Tylenol before backing up, only to crash into a display, catching the attention of a bystander in an orange shirt, who rushes to help with her children.

And Patel reappears holding a box of medicine, speaks briefly to the man in orange, and then continues on, calmly walking past Miller as if nothing unusual occurred. And I'm going to show you this from a different angle. So from another camera, we see Patel on the right-hand side emerging from that aisle, walking out of view to talk with Miller, and there they are, exchanging words before Miller can be seen leading Patel to the aisle. Now, we can't see what happens when they disappear behind a display case, but whatever it was, it did catch the attention of the man in the orange shirt.

You can see him turn his head. And when we see Miller and Patel again, we get a much closer look at Miller directing Patel down the aisle before turning around to leave. And from this angle, we can see again when she crashes into that display case and the subsequent efforts of the man in the orange shirt to help her. Patel seems to reenter the frame, medicine in hand, exchanging words with the bystander, appears to walk away, doesn't look unhurried, doesn't look unbothered.

There's an overhead angle inside the store that shows Patel stopping to show Miller the Tylenol that he found, receiving a thumbs up in return. He checks out at the register, pays with his debit card, pauses to chat with an employee before exiting the store. Nothing on its face that might suggest he was fleeing the scene, as has been suggested. But in spite of what we just showed you here, Ackworth Police arrested Patel on March 21st. He's currently sitting in a Cobb County jail without bond. Totally off topic, but very important.

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know what the disconnect is. I mean, the audience just saw the footage that we played. We see the criminal charges. What is the misunderstanding? Yeah, there is a huge misunderstanding. And I think it's as simple as two people, you know, experiencing the same thing, but experiencing it in very different ways. I mean, it's obvious from watching the footage that Mr. Patel was not meeting any harm. He wasn't trying to abduct a child. He wasn't trying to assault a child. I mean, he's charged with battery. He's charged with assault. He's charged with attempted kidnapping. And if you watch the footage, that definitely didn't happen. If you watch it and you view it through Mr. Patel's perspective, you know, this is a lady who's in a handicapped car, who he thought is handicapped, got two young

children, and you can see from the video is having some trouble managing them, having some trouble with the cart, and she starts to rise to point out, and you can see this on the video, starts to rise to point out where the Tylenol is, and it looks like her child is falling, which is really confirmed by the fact that moments later, when Mr. Patel leaves and goes to get the Tylenol, the child does fall, and she runs the child's foot over. I mean, literally, seconds later, this does happen. So it's very reasonable if that's what Mr. Patel thinks is going on. The fact that someone would interpret that as an attempted kidnapping. It defies logic. There's a gentleman within arm's reach. She's watching the entire

thing. And I've spoken to him. And he said, this is the guy in the orange shirt. This is the guy in the orange shirt. Yeah. We interviewed him. My investigator interviewed him. And there, you know, he said, if anything was happening, a kidnapping, an abduction was happening, I would have done something. There was no struggle. Nothing like that. I mean, he's right there. He would have done something. And you can tell he's a good Samaritan. Because when she does bump into the car, when she does bump into the actual end cap and she does run her child's foot over, he immediately jumps. You know, so this guy is clearly watching, clearly there to help. And he doesn't do anything, you know, and on these videos, you see all these different Walmart employees walking around. Nobody runs over. If Mr. Patel is

trying to kidnap a child in the middle of a crowded Walmart, someone's going to come. Why is she alleging this then? Why do police believe there was something more nefarious going on here? I mean, I think the problem with the police is that they didn't fully invent. I think that the police regularly have what I would call blinders on, and they only see one version, and they don't actually investigate the whole case. I don't know why this lady would make this up. I don't know why she would make this allocation. You know, it's very suspect. She waited 30 minutes to call 911. I mean, I've got two daughters. If someone was trying to kidnap one of my children, you better believe I'll be screaming at the top of my lungs running around like a crazy person in that Walmart. You know, that's not happening. She's literally joking with this gentleman moments later.

And then, you know, puttering along on her cart, she waits 30 minutes to call 911. I mean, this is not the reaction of someone who's actually just had their child attempted to be kidnapped. Do you know if police attempted to contact your client before taking him into custody, get his side of the story? No, they didn't. They took a warrant out and they arrested him. They did do an interview with him when they arrested him. And he told exactly what he's told us. You know, he told them exactly what happened.

So they did that, they did that after they had already secured a warrant for kidnapping. Why is he, by the way, being held without bond? Yeah, you know, that's kind of a legal maneuvering and legal snafu almost. I mean, it's just, it's a problem with our system. What's happened is the officer arrested him for kidnapping of a minor. He took significant liberties with that warrant. There was no evidence of kidnapping. And so he misrepresented some facts to the magistrate to get that warrant.

That is such a serious crime that you don't get a bond when you're in front of that magistrate judge. So Mr. Patel sitting in jail without bond. And then we file and get a bond hearing. And the district attorney decided instead of giving us that bond hearing, which is an adversarial hearing, which I can subpoena witnesses, I can cross-examine witnesses. Instead of doing that, they wanted to go to a grand jury in a secret private setting where there's no other side, there's no defense lawyer questioning, there's no subpoenaing of evidence, and present it in a one-sided fashion to that grand jury. And they did that. And so when they indicted the case, it was no longer in front of the magistrate judge. It went to the new judge.

It went to the trial judge. The Superior Court judge is what we call it here in Georgia. And so that bond hearing was done away with. So we were denied the ability to get bond. And we've had an administration change here in this county for the DA's office. And the new DA's office does not freely consent to bond like the old district attorney's office did. And so we're in a situation where I've been asking repeatedly for a consent bond and can't get it. And so the first opportunity we had for bond is next.

Tuesday and so that's when the bond is going to be hurt. And at that point, he's going to be in jail over 40 days. Let's put that to the side. I want to talk about what we can expect from that hearing. It seems to me what's going on is there is a disagreement over the footage. Why do I say that, actually? Because the police are saying essentially the video we just saw was edited. Sergeant Eric Mistretta of the Akworth Police Department said in a statement, the video released by the attorney does not show the entire incident. It seems to have been edited. It's not the video we have. Now, the Daily Mail says they never got any copy of the footage that the police department says they have. What's going on here, Ashley? What's your response?

I am so glad you asked that. So let me start with Sergeant Mistreda. He also issued a statement when Mr. Patel was first arrested and said that Mr. Patel tried to flee the scene. And, you know, we can clearly see from the videos that that's not the case. What happened is we've got all the videos. We sent them to you. There's 20 different surveillance videos. over an hour each, many, many hours of footage. The news is not going to play 20 hours of surveillance footage. What the news is going to play are clips of that surveillance footage. And so what we did was we put together a five and a half or so minute clip, and there's

two views. So this is really important. There's two views of this incident, this alleged incident. There's a view where you can see Mr. Patel's back, and there's a view from the ceiling. And what I wanted was I wanted the viewer to be able to see everything clearly, not just one clip. And so what we did was in real time, we had it go back and forth. So you see the camera where you see us back, and then you see the exact same moments, but from the overhead camera.

And then it goes back, and you see the back camera, and then you see the overhead camera. All of it's there. It's just there in a different sequence so that the viewer can actually get more of a 360 view of what's happening. It's not edited. It's not cut. It's not anything like that. It's just two different views that are compiled.

It's called a compilation is what it's called. But all of that footage has been related. we have all of the footage. So just to be clear, nothing was cut out like the moment when he allegedly tried to kidnap the child, nothing like that. I guess the question is why are the police saying this? I mean, I imagine you presented this footage to law enforcement, right? Did they have it?

Have you got a response about presenting this? You know, I would hope that they have it. I don't know what they have because in there, they have not responded to us. And in their police report, they said that they viewed it, but that they didn't secure it. So God knows what they actually have because they left that Walmart without getting the footage. We subpoenaed the footage. And so what we did was we actually have a business record certificate from Walmart that is admissible in court that says this is a true and exact copy of the entire footage.

The court is very specific. That is a sworn statement from Walmart that we have the entire footage. We have submitted that to the district attorney's office. I don't know why the police have continued to make these misrepresentations, but it's repeat needed. And it's getting ridiculous. They made misrepresentations in the arrest warrant. They made misrepresentations in their report that Mr. Patel fled. He didn't flee. He checked out with his own debit card. He talked to two separate employees after this. He was having a good old time at Walmart chatting up different employees. He didn't flee. He did the exact opposite

of fleeing. And so to be clear, you don't know what police looked at, what footage they have, right? No. No, we don't know what police looked at. But what we do know is that we have the true and complete and full copy of the Walmart surveillance videos. And do you plan to present that in court at this upcoming hearing? Definitely. And we've already filed notice that we do that. We filed the business record certificate, which is what we're required to do. You know, it's once the business owner, once Walmart certifies the records, they're admissible in court. They're ruled authentic. And so that's been done. There's been no challenge to it. You know, the police apparently in the

news have challenged the authenticity of it, but there's been no challenge in court. What about the prosecutor's office? What have they said about it? You know, the prosecutor's office is not, you know, not been willing to consent to bond, which is disappointing. And so we'll see, you know, we've got to, we'll see what their position is on bond next week. But, I mean, I'm hoping that they would view all of the footage and do the right thing. When you say that, so if you present this footage, right, and the court looks at and says,

wait a minute, I don't see what's being alleged here. Could the case just be dropped at that hearing? I mean, what can we expect would happen at that hearing? What's the best case scenario for you and your client? The best case scenario is the district attorney drops the charges, drops the case entirely. And the judge actually doesn't have the ability to do that. So it's crazy because you have the ability in civil lawsuits for a judge to dismiss a case, but not in criminal lawsuits. So the judge actually cannot dismiss the charges.

What the judge can do is grant a bond, but we need the district attorney to actually dismiss the charges. I want to ask you about something else, Ashley. So this change.org petition, this is demanding justice. for Mr. Patel, it is surged. It's amassed thousands of signatures from supporters who call his arrest a grave miscarriage of justice. In fact, part of that petition reads, while it is undeniable that child kidnapping is a grievous crime that needs to be tackled rigorously. Patel has been singled out without compelling evidence, leaving a question mark on the fairness of the justice system of Cobb County. And one's stark warning cuts pretty deep because that person writes,

I am Patel. You know, it's a metaphorical sense, but I have very much. learned one harsh truth in this country, don't help anyone. Even if someone is dying in front of you, don't intervene because trying to do the right thing can cost you everything. There's also this give send go campaign to raise funds to help the Patel's. Ashley, what is your reaction to the public support that Patel is receiving? It's amazing because normally, you know, I'm trying to beat down doors to get people to come to court for my client. And in this case, we actually can't handle the volume of support. I don't believe I've ever had a client that had so much. many members of the community that know him personally. And I'm not talking about just random

members of the community. I'm talking pillars of the community that know him well that have called us. We had, I'll tell you a crazy story on that. My kids go to school here in Cobb County. And one of my daughters came home from school and said, my teacher knows your client and said, I hope you get him out. I mean, it's, you know, this is a teacher that teaches children who's saying this to a child about this alleged kidnapper. We've had neighbors who called us and said, you know, we love Mick. They call him Mick. Mick is what he goes by. We love Mick. Our kids wait for the bus and the bus stop wait is in his driveway, you know? I mean, it's just lots of kids, lots of people have reached out and said, we know him, we love him, not just people that don't know him, that have seen this and said this is an injustice, but people that know him that have been in his home, that have shared meals with him, that know him in the community, they love him. And, you know, this is just, it's awful because if the police had bothered to talk to anybody, they could have verified why he was there. I mean, he was there to buy Tylenol because he cares for his 86 years. old mother who lives with him who's immobile and suffers from osteoarthritis.

He was there to buy her Tylenol. They seized his phone. They could have seen the texts in the phone from his daughter who's in medical school, who is literally texting him which type of Tylenol to get for Nana. I mean, this is all things that the police could have done if they had bothered to actually investigate. Why do you think then? I mean, taking that as true, why do you think there was this rush to arrest and what seems

to be you're suggesting a sloppy, incomplete investigation? I think that Ms. Miller made allegations that were taken out of context and incorrect. And I think that the police did not do enough follow-up. I think that they made some public statements that this, you know, this is a public outcry. And, you know, anytime there's a public outcry and the community thinks that there's a child kidnapper on the loose, the police are very quick to make arrests, very quick. And they sort of did more to ignite this public clamoring and, you know, the public being so terrified of whatever's happening. And so the public really wanted an arrest and the police want to deliver.

You know, they want to make the public happy. They want to solve the case. And so I think they're just very quick to make an arrest without looking at everything. And talking about Ms. Miller for a second. So it appears that she had previously filed a lawsuit back in 2019 against Lyft, alleging she was sexually assaulted by a driver. This is according to reporting from the Associated Press. And the outlet reports that she was one of 19 women who filed jointly against the ride share company in December of 2019.

It's a case that still. appears to be unresolved. Ashley, do you believe anything about that is relevant to your case at hand? Oh, I definitely do. I think that it could go to what the motivations were in her making this allegations, whether the motivations are to sue Walmart, to sue my client, you know, something like that. That could definitely be at play here. And, you know, I had to investigate that case because we found the lawsuit.

And in the lawsuit, you have to, for a civil case, you have to swear to the facts in your lawsuit. And so the facts that she swore to are that she was raped. And so I went and I pulled the police report because if, you know, obviously if she is a victim of sexual assault, you know, then then that's not something that we want to talk about. I pulled the police report and she specifically told the police she was not raped. So, you know, you've got this statement to law enforcement where she says she's not raped and then you've got this statement in a lawsuit where she's trying to get money saying that she is, that's inconsistent. And so if she's made prior false allegations, whether the motivation is for attention, is for money, whatever the motivations are, that's highly relevant to her. her allegations in this case. Highly relevant. I was going to ask you how that might actually

come into a legal case, right? She's not the defendant, right? Your client is how would you be able to present evidence of this unless she takes the stand and you can cross-examine her about this? Is that the way that you'd be able to introduce it? That's exactly how if she, and she would have to take the stand. She would have to take the stand to sustain this case. And so if she takes the stand, then we're permitted to cross-examine her about this because it's what we consider a prior false allegation. And so because the allegation was made that she swore in a complaint that she was raped and then she told law enforcement that she wasn't, that's a prior false allegation and that's admissible to impeach her. As we were talking about Patel's bond

hearing, it's set for May 6th. He currently remains behind bars. He has the support. He has you backing him, Ashley. How is he doing right now? How is his family doing right now? I think he's doing better than his family. You know, it's been tough. At first, it was really tough because the news was all condemning him. You know, before we got this video footage and before we were able to actually expose the truth, the news and the police, you know, Sergeant Mestreda had made statements, very specific statements about, thank God, we caught him,

you know, this child could have died. I mean, just very prejudicial statements. And so it was really tough at the beginning. Now that the story has come out and the truth has come out, things have definitely shifted, but it's still awful. He's incarcerated without bond. It's horrible. I mean, can you imagine being snatched from your life

without any warning for 40 days? If you think about it, if you take a vacation for five days, you plan for, you know, five weeks. This is a man who has business, has family, and he was snatched without any warning from his life for at this point, you know, almost 40 days. That's significant. It's very difficult for his family. I mean, he's got two adult children. They're both in school. They're actually in graduate school. And so, you know, right now it's May, it's finals time. This is very difficult for them. This is difficult for his wife. She's having to maintain their businesses while he's in custody. It's

difficult for their friends. It's just awful that he's had to sit in jail this long, especially when we have a video that shows he's innocent. Does he plan to take any legal action in response? You know, I'm not sure. I mean, it's a lot's going to depend on how this works out. I mean, I think at this point, he'd be happy with a dismissal and an apology. But, you know, we'll see because he's still in jail and we're still finding out what's happening.

We don't have the state's file yet. So, you know, we don't know what the police had in front of them. I think that will really inform that decision to see what evidence the police actually had in front of them when they made this. Did, you know, did Ms. Miller lie? Did they not have these surveillance videos? Why did they believe that this was a kidnapping case? And just to be 100% clear, is there any footage that's missing? Is there anything part of this encounter? You say, we just don't have this part. This part's obscured. We haven't seen this part. Is there anything missing? Or do you say, I have a full picture of everything that went down in that store and afterwards?

There is nothing missing. We have got so much footage. We have him entering the store. We have him leaving the store. We have him driving. We have, I mean, we have all of the relevant. surveillance footage. Everything from when he was in that store. Ashley Merchant, we're going to keep an eye out for this. Thank you so much for sharing the footage for us. We sent it, you know, we presented it for our audience as well to see. But thank you so much and appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Good to see you. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Let's speak to you next time.

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