Woman Lies, Innocent Man Arrested, 47 DAYS in Jail - LAWSUIT

A man was accused by this woman of attempting to kidnap her child.

Did someone try to take you from mommy? Yeah. I was in the Walmart and I had to rip my baby out of some other man's hands because he was

trying to snatch him. Someone trying to snatch your baby?

Yeah. Police say it was this man, 56-year-old Mahendra Patel. Disaster was narrowly averted, she said. Two-year-old Jude was not hurt and his sister was unharmed as well, something Miller is grateful for today. It was a warning to others, she

said. There really are people out here and then a mile radius of us right now that have ill intentions, that are targeting people, that are planning to

do these things. Just be prepared for it when it does. But as it turns out, that was actually a lie. But that didn't keep cops and prosecutors from keeping this completely innocent man in jail for 47 days.

Multiple guns being pointed at him. They treated him like a criminal because of the warrant that these defendants in my lawsuit got on him. And then they brought him to the jail, and he spent 47 days there. The old adage is that any decent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.

And that's what happened here. They decided to get him indicted, even though they supposedly couldn't get the video to play.

So this man goes into a Walmart to buy his elderly mother, some arthritis medication. Meanwhile, this woman is riding around Walmart on a mobility scooter even though she's not disabled. Her kids are literally hanging off of it as she just putts around the store. The man can't find what he's looking for, so when he sees this woman, he asks her if

she knows where he can find it. Then all hell breaks loose. As I mentioned, this man ends up spending 47 days in jail over what were obviously false accusations. And as it turns out, this may not have been her first time. A lawsuit was just filed.

I got the chance to speak to his civil rights attorneys. This is Solomon Radner from Detroit, Michigan, as well as his brother, Brother Counsel, who has a YouTube channel that you should definitely check out where he does deep dives into trials across the country. There is a individual named Mik Patel. He's based in Georgia, and he was going to Walmart. He was actually going to pick up some medication for his mother, and he was going to a Walmart. He was actually going to pick up some medication

for his mother and he has trouble locating it. He's not usually shopping at Walmart. They usually have these medications on order. It's a very special type of Tylenol. It wasn't just a regular Tylenol. It was specific for maybe his mother

who had like severe arthritis or something. It was a special type of Tylenol. He's there out of the blue, he can't really find it. And he finds a lady who he believes is just going to help him find the medication. In fact, you see an interaction between the two of them where he's kind of asking her,

hey, where can I find this medication? What aisle should I look into? And at some point you see, and she's on this motorized scooter which is really designated for the people that are disabled but she's not disabled but she's riding it and she has her kids on her lap and one of the kids starts to fall off. So he as a good

citizen, as a good person, tries to help save the kid from falling off of the scooter, puts her back on her lap and she tells him where he can find that medication, where she believes that the medication could be. And then he goes and he gets the medication, he comes back to her, he shows her, hey look, I found the medication, strolls out of the store, just walking out of the store, pays for it, and that's really the extent

of the interaction between these two individuals. Well, little does he know

later that this individual goes and reports to the police that he was actually trying to kidnap her child.

Did someone try to take you from mommy? Yeah. Over there and as soon as I did that that's when he just picked him up out of my arms. And that's where this whole

investigation completely goes off the rails. He gets arrested, he's in jail for like 43 days or something like that. And on these charges of attempted kidnapping.

9-1-1, what's the location of your emergency? I was in the Walmart and I had to rip my baby out of some other man's hands because he was trying to snatch him. The man is gone now, but. Someone tried to snatch your baby?

Yeah.

Okay, and Jessica from ago. Yeah, there ago now occurred 30 minut I would have called soone

I got my baby back. Okay,

a moment. You're okay. I will go ahead and let the officers know, and they will come out there and meet with

you, okay?

Okay, thank you so much.

The woman calls 911 or whatever she does and reports that somebody had tried to kidnap her child. What happened when the cops arrived?

Cops arrived, talked to her. They watched the video footage of the incident. That's where this really should have started and ended, unless of course they wanted to charge Ms. Miller with filing a false police report, which of course is a charge, I think, in every state. They chose not to do that. Instead, they chose to go after Mr. Patel.

What they did was they took this video footage from Walmart, which is completely exculpatory and proves without question that there was absolutely no attempted kidnapping whatsoever. They took that footage with them and then they went to a grand jury and a woman by the name of Temperance Stoddard, I understand is the person who was the main witness there, testified to the grand jury that, uh,

that Mr. Patel tried to kidnap this woman's child, and we have video proof, and supposedly she couldn't get the video to play, which we're all lawyers, we all know that anybody who is involved in law enforcement or litigation or criminal court

or any sort of legal business, whatever that field might be, the most important thing you're ever gonna play play for a jury is going to be a video. Anybody who claims they couldn't get a video to play. I certainly would question that.

Is there a grand jury transcript?

Not that I have yet.

Did you say that she testified to the grand jury that it was on video?

Yes.

And if there's no transcript, how do we know that?

So obviously I've been doing a little bit of investigation myself. I've been speaking to people who may or may not willing to be going on the record just yet. When they are, obviously I can see if they'll, you know, see how much they're willing to share with whom and whatever.

But simply put, the grand jurors themselves are willing to talk. Some of them are willing to talk. And some of them are willing to say what was going through their heads at the time and how damaging it was that this video wouldn't play. Because then they just had to go on what was being alleged. And you and I both know that the probable cause standard is super,

super, super low. The old adage is that any decent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. And that's what happened here. They decided to get him indicted, even though they supposedly

couldn't get the video to play. How long after Mr. Patel left Walmart was he arrested? Like, what was the first thing? I mean, everything's fine. He gets his Tylenol. And what was the first thing? I mean everything's fine. He gets his Tylenol and What was the next thing that happened for him?

It was a few days later that they got the arrest warrant, which was March 21st March 24th is when he was in his car driving down the highway Got pulled over at gunpoint at the side of the road. He had no idea what was going on No clue what was going on. No clue what was going on.

Walk back, walk back, walk back. Come to me, come to me. Keep coming, keep coming, keep coming. Go down on your knees. Lay down on the ground. Hands out, hands out of the side. Got him. Don't move. Yeah. You got any weapons on you or anything? No, of the side. Got him. Don't move. You got any weapons on you or anything?

No, of course not. No? I don't know, man. What's your name, dude? Mahendra Patel.

Mahendra? Yes, sir.

Hey, you got a warrant for your arrest.

Hello, I'm in.

Have a safe trip. Hello, I'm in. County mother tells Atlanta News first. the first time.

The cop county mother tells Atlanta News First she lived every parent's worst nightmare after police say someone tried to kidnap her child.

Atlanta News First Bridget

Spencer is live tonight at the Cop County Jail. Bridget this happened while they were at a Walmart. Blair and Carly this certainly is something this mother would

like to forget. Tonight I talked to her and she walked us through those terrifying moments where she thought she was going to lose her child.

Did someone try to take you from mommy? Yeah. Nova of course wanted to ride the little motorized cart so that's what we got on and it actually ended up breaking down. That's when the man came up to me and asked, Tylenol is. And I was lik And as soon as I did that

pick them up out of my ar

she then played a terrifyi for about 10 seconds, whi

And then he just stared a Oh, I just wanted to get him out of your lap so you could get up and help me.

Police say it was this man, 56 year old Mahendra Patel. Atworth police tracked him down and arrested him after he left the Walmart. Two year old Jude was not hurt and his sister was unharmed as well. Something Miller is grateful for today.

There really are people out here and a mile radius of us right now that have ill intentions, that are targeting people, that are planning to do these things. Just be prepared for it when it does.

The attorney who represented him was an attorney named Ashley Merchant. Turns out that she was able to look at those videos and ultimately she was able to get the case completely dismissed. Her

children are sort of hanging off of this cart and you see Mr. Vettel almost lean in to help and then moments later, literally split seconds later, she starts to rise to point out the Tylenol. Then within one or two seconds after that you

see her in a screen laughing with another gentleman. Now at the same point

something very interesting that they discovered about this individual, this may not have been the first time that she kind of made up some sort of allegations. There is another instance where she was, she's actually part of a class action lawsuit against Lyft for what she claims was a rape.

She claims that a Lyft driver tried to rape her and as part of this class action lawsuit that driver, by the way, was initially charged with rape but pled to disorderly conduct. Not your typical plea deal for someone who's facing, you know, rape charges. And also, once you start looking into that case and you see start seeing the details of what she claimed happened in that case, you start to really scratch your head. So for example, the allegations in that complaint were that this person, this Lyft driver who attempted to rape her, she said that she

actually needed to get medication, her asthma medication, before he would conduct the rape. And he was okay with that apparently. Yeah sure just go get your asthma medication I'll just wait here until you're good and ready. She goes and she claims that she he also wanted to take her to a hotel to rape her. That is similar situation where there may be a lot of embellishing of

exactly what happened there. When you watch the surveillance footage from Walmart,

what do you see?

I see a pleasant interaction between a man and a woman with her kids. There is another man just a few feet away who has a follow-up pleasant interaction with that same woman. A few minutes later, after Mr. Patel finds the Tylenol

and is leaving the store, he actually goes over to her and says, hey, look, I found it. Here's the Tylenol. And there's another pleasant interaction. And she actually gives him a thumbs up. And then he leaves.

And any sane human being who watches this video knows that there was not an attempted kidnapping there. Let me kind of explain what happened next. They get him indicted on very, very serious charges. Georgia has some interesting laws about when discovery has to happen. It doesn't have to happen until much closer to trial. So none of this video was disclosed to the defense attorney. The

defense attorney is, in my opinion, probably one of the best defense attorneys in the state of Georgia, Ashley Merchant. She's had a number of cases that had a lot of publicity over the last several years. And she is a tremendous, tremendous attorney. It's a good thing that Mr. Patel is a man of means and is able to afford such excellent representation.

I shudder to think of what would have happened if he would have gotten, for example, a public defender. You never know what you're gonna get when you get a public defender. They're just worked too thin. She's his lawyer and she starts demanding the evidence. Prosecutor's not turning it over. So Miss Merchant starts wondering, what's the deal here? Why aren't they turning this over? They don't have to, but why aren't they? Why wouldn't they do it?

So she decides to subpoena the footage directly from Walmart. The prosecutor, and I think this is consciousness of guilt, and when I take the depositions of some of these folks, I plan on really getting into this in a lot of detail. The prosecutor filed a motion to quash that subpoena, which begs the question, why? Why didn't they want the defense to see that video? Well, the court overruled that objection,

and the court allowed Ms. Merchant to subpoena the footage directly from Walmart. And as soon as she got it, she released it to the public. And there was outrage, absolute outrage, because Mr. Patel spent 47 days in jail when there was this conclusive, exculpatory evidence the entire time that the police and prosecutors sat on and let an innocent man sit in jail for 47 days. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for what they did.

Frankly, they should be in prison for what they did to this man. That's how outrageous it is.

Is the reason that he was sitting in jail for 47 days because he had a extremely high bond?

It was no bond. He was just kept in jail because the charges were so serious. And he has significant ties out of the country. So the prosecutor went to the judge and said, we can't let this man out. He's a flight risk. If we let him go, he's a dangerous, he's a dangerous man who likes to kidnap children

in Walmart. And then he'll fly away across the world and never come back.

They knew it was lies when they said it. Do we know for a fact that they watched the actual surveillance footage on the

day of the incident? The police report indicates that they reviewed the footage and what the police reports claim is that the footage supports Miss Miller's

version of events. I mean how can they watch that footage and then believe that

it supports the allegations?

That's gonna be the first question I ask the cops during my deposition of them. Every once in a while I see a case that just makes me it makes my my head pop. I'll read to you what the police report actually says while they were there at the incident at Walmart. Walmart cameras showed the incident and Corporal Lumpkin viewed the footage showing what Miller explained.

How?

That's not what the footage shows. If they would have written the truth in this report, Mr. Patel never would have been charged, nobody ever would have heard his name, and I certainly never would have filed this lawsuit because he went to spend 47 days in jail.

Is it possible that there's two ways of interpreting what you can see on this sort of grainy surveillance footage? So I tried, I tried to make sense of it. I tried to ask myself is it possible to watch this and believe that Mr. Patel tried to kidnap this child. The answer is absolutely not. There's too many other things going on. There's another person just a few feet away

who doesn't react, not startled. If you try to kidnap a child in a busy Walmart, it's gonna be annoying. First of all, I mean, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life. But I digress.

There's another person right there. That other person would react in some way, which would support a person who's claiming that their child was just the victim of an attempted kidnapping, but that didn't happen. And then the subsequent interaction of, hey, I found it, thumbs up.

That's not how you act, certainly in a public place when somebody just tried to kidnap your child. It is inconceivable. So I myself, the first few times I watched it, tried to play devil's advocate as well, because obviously as litigators, what we have to do is we have to anticipate what our opposition is going to do, what opposing counsel is going to do,

and prepare for it. And I'm sure that that's going to be their argument. I'm sure that they're going to play the footage and say, yeah, that's exactly what Ms. Miller said. That's what we thought was going on. And that's why we put that in the report. But then, and this is why I think consciousness and guilt is so important. Why not turn the footage over to the defense? Why try to quash the subpoena from the defense? And then there was another thing that happened, which I didn't even get to yet.

They had Mr. Patel's phone. And the prosecutor, or one of the investigators, signed an affidavit and testified to a judge that they needed to get a warrant for the contents of the phone so that they can see what's inside of it because they had good reason to believe that there was evidence of a kidnapping in the phone, which again, completely untrue. And I look forward to being able to take this deposition and ask what evidence in the world possibly could have been on this phone and what basis they had to make this claim

I think what was going on was they wanted to get his phone so that they can look through it And I've had other cops do this in other cases That's why I think it's probably what happened here And then find something that he did wrong if you if you are charging somebody with crime A and you get access to his hard drive and then you find some child pornography or some illegally downloaded music or some

fraudulent tax returns, financial crimes, there could be all kinds of things on a phone. And then you can say, oh, we got him for this now. And as long as you have a good faith basis, a warrant to get into that phone, you got him, you nailed it, and then you get to protect your own your own hide. So that's what I think happened there. But again, the consciousness of guilt here I think is the strongest thing because why would they be fighting so hard to not turn over that footage and why would they dismiss the case as soon as the footage gets publicized? And there's also one other thing I wanted to just add in, and that is that she, I believe

she went on record saying that there was a 10 second tug of war between her and Mr. Patel over the child. If you look at that video, it's about maybe a second and a half when the child's falling out and he saves the child and gives her, gives the child back to the mother. It's about a second and a half and she. I believe there's went on record

did interviews where she's saying that there was this 10 seconds of tug

of war and I was like, oh, it's over there. And as soon as I did that, that's when you just pick them up out of my

arms. Miller says she then played a terrifying game of tug of war for about 10 seconds, which felt like an eternity. And then he just

strolls through the store, gets the medication, pays for it. No running out, no quickly. Let's get out of here. This didn't work out. There's nothing consistent at all

with the kidnapping in this case, or attempted kidnapping. Do you have any idea or theory on why this woman made these allegations?

Absolutely same reason she made on why this woman made these allegations? Absolutely. Same reason she made the allegations in Lyft, for money. You claim something like this happened, then you sue Walmart after there's some sort of plea, and then get some money. That's what my guess would be, I don't know.

But she is a named defendant, and I anticipate taking her deposition. I look forward to taking her deposition.

They had not interviewed him prior to arresting him on the side of the road.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That, that is, that is really something, isn't it? And I know that we've seen a lot of police investigations. The first thing the police do when they're dealing with somebody who they think is guilty is they try to get a conviction out of them. They try to get a contention out of them. And that didn't happen in this case. They didn't talk to him. They didn't call him. They didn't

say, hey, can you come down? We have some questions for you. They just went and they got a warrant for him, claimed they couldn't play the exculpatory video, which proves his innocence. And then several days later, so we're talking March 18th to March 24th, he's driving down the road, gets pulled over at gunpoint. And again, the cops at the side of the road, they were dealing with a felony warrant. I didn't see anything wrong with the way they arrested him. When you've got somebody who's got a warrant for a technical kidnapping, it's going to be done at gunpoint.

That's what's called a felony arrest. And that's just the way it's done. Whether it should be or not is not really the question that I'm going to be litigating. So that's what they did. Multiple guns being pointed at him. They treated him like a criminal because of the warrant that these defendants in my lawsuit got on him. And then they brought him to the jail and he spent 47 days there until finally, despite

the prosecutor and police fighting tooth and nail for the exculpatory video to not end up in the hands of the defense, it did end up in the hands of the defense, and then it ended up in the hands of the court and the public. And the prosecutor really had no choice at that point, but to dismiss the case because they knew that there was no way they were going to be able to plead to prove his guilt. What I'm thinking their goal probably was, was to coerce some sort of plea, just like the case Martin was talking about where somebody's facing a criminal sexual conduct and then they reduce it to disorderly conduct. I don't care how innocent a person is. If they're facing

potentially life in prison and what some would consider worse life on the sex offender registry and then somebody comes over and says here plead guilty to this parking ticket which is basically what disorderly person is. I don't care how innocent the person is, how much proof there is, how little proof there is, whether the guy's got a thousand alibi witnesses and video proof of his innocence. He's not gonna want to roll the dice. You never know what a jury is

gonna do. So what I'm guessing the prosecutor was gonna do here is as they got closer and closer to trial, but before they had to produce the video footage, they were going to come with some excellent offer, maybe a misdemeanor assault case of some sort where there's really no problem, nothing on his record, maybe even some sort of deferred sentence. And then that way they get their win and they never have to produce the video footage. But that plan didn't work because Mr. Patel hired an awesome lawyer and that awesome lawyer fought to get the video.

Do you have any theory on why the Acworth Police Department or whatever, whichever investigators were involved, why, why would they charge your client and prosecute your client in the

face of surveillance footage that obviously shows that he did not do what she said?

That's a very good question. And I have a theory. And my theory is that sometimes you get cops who are just bad apples, and they don't care whose lives they ruin. And I we've seen plenty of examples of that. I like to not live in a world where that's what was happening here. But another explanation, which I think would really be their best bet when they have their defense attorneys, is that one of confirmation bias, which is they spoke to Miss Miller, she seemed to have a credible story. They believed her. And then at that point,

it's almost like the halo effect in the devil horns that once you hear a story, and in your mind you put the halo on one party and devil horns on the other, it doesn't matter at that point what else you see, hear, or learn.

You're gonna twist it in your own head to make sure that it fits the narrative that you have in your mind. And it could be that that's what happened here. That's the, that is generously, that is the only defense I can come up with for what they did and why they did it. But again, the million dollar question here

is why not play the video to the grand jury? And why fight so hard to make sure the video doesn't get played to the defense? And I can't think of any explanation for either of those things. I think that we may be dealing with some bad apples here.

Did they ever apologize, whether privately or publicly, to Mr. Patel?

Wouldn't that be something? No, they don't do that. I have yet to have a case where anybody apologized, except for one. Let me take that back. There was one where part of the settlement was that he had to get up in court and apologize.

I told my client, I'm sure this is gonna come with all kinds of but, but, buts, and sure enough it did. But that's the only time I've ever seen a situation resolve where the police knew they did something wrong and actually issued an apology.

Do you know whether they are still maintaining that Mr. Patel did anything wrong?

I have no idea. Have they, so you filed a lawsuit, has there been any answer filed yet?

Not yet, not yet. We just got them served several days ago. And I anticipate and look forward to reading what they can possibly come up with as a defense here and explaining it, why they felt the need to file a motion to quash Ms. Merchant's subpoena. I think that's, that and their supposed inability to play the video for the grand jury, I think are the two most damaging pieces of evidence here against the defendants, against the prosecutor and the police, and we'll see what happens.

Yeah, I look forward to hearing what their answers are as well. I appreciate you talking with me and I hope you keep me in the loop about what happens in the future.

Okay, absolutely will do. Thank you, appreciate it. Always nice talking to you.

So there you have it. The lawsuit was just filed. It's in the very early stages, so it's going to take a while for anything to happen, but I really look forward to seeing the depositions of everyone involved here because they must be held accountable. And if they're not going to hold themselves accountable, then it's up to the victims, such as Mr. Patel, to find the best civil rights lawyers that they can and hold them accountable in court.

Though it's unfortunate to the taxpayers there in Cobb County, Georgia, that they are going to end up being on the hook for the terrible misconduct of their public servants. So if you live in Cobb County, Georgia, and these are your public servants,

I will link in the description below at the blog post, all of the documents, the lawsuit, the police reports, the links, everything I have on this, so that you have what you need to help try to throw these losers out of office. And it would help to spread the word of their misconduct by commenting on this video, by liking this video, by showing it to your friends and family. That way it gets in front of the most eyes as possible.

And if that happens, we have a greater chance of them being thrown out of office or them being prosecuted or them being fired or at the very least them losing this lawsuit as they should. And that's what needs to happen. Only through public exposure is there accountability with these public officials who usually have complete immunity from any and all accountability. That's why they act the way that they do.

I really appreciate Solomon and his brother, Brother Counsel, from speaking to me and giving me all the details on this and they've promised to keep me in the loop. So if you want to follow along please subscribe both here and at the blog at thecivilrightslawyer.com You can follow me on x at John Bryan ESQ. Remember our rights don't You can follow me on x at John Bryan ESQ. Remember our rights don't

end where your fear begins. Freedom is scary. Deal with it.