New video shows the moment a mom said a stranger tried to kidnap her son inside an Acworth Walmart.
Mahendra Patel is in Cobb County Jail charged with attempted kidnapping, assault, and battery.
His attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, agreed to share the video with Channel 2 Action News because she said it proves her client is innocent.
“He’s being friendly. This is a friendly older gentleman trying to help people, asking for help at the Walmart,” Merchant told Channel 2′s Courtney Francisco.
Surveillance video from inside the store shows Patel walking in last month.
Merchant said he was shopping for Tylenol for his mother.
As he walked the aisles, you can see him cross paths with a woman named Caroline Miller. Miller is in a motorized wheelchair, holding a baby in her arms. A little girl is sitting on the chair’s base under the mother’s legs.
Miller and Merchant agree, Patel asked her for help finding Tylenol.
She pointed him toward some aisles in the distance.
As she does that, video shows the chair drive forward. He leans in. That’s when the mother said he picked up her son.
“We were tug of warring,” Miller said.
“This video is very clear that that did not happen,” argued Merchant.
Merchant said her client thought the child was going to fall. So, he was helping her readjust.
The video shows Patel back up, and Miller points to something. Patel moves in that direction.
“If you’re in Walmart and you see someone in need, you’re just going to have to let them fall, apparently,” Merchant said. “We can no longer help handicapped people is what this is saying.
Miller did not respond to requests to comment on the new video. She said last month that she is not handicapped, but her children wanted to ride in the motorized wheelchair.
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She does have trouble driving it in the video. She backed into shelves and appeared to run over her child’s foot with it.
Another shopper helped her at that point.
While that is happening, an employee helps Patel find Tylenol.
He passes the mom on the way to the checkout counter and shows her the bottle he’s carrying.
“He’s not fleeing as the police have said. He’s using his debit card. He’s talking to an employee here, paying for it with his own name,” Merchant said.
Patel stops before leaving and talks with another employee.
Police arrested him days later.
He’s been in jail for nearly a month with no bond.
Last week, a Grand Jury indicted him.
The Cobb County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment on a pending case. Prosecutors would have to drop charges for the case to be dismissed.
In three weeks, his attorney has a chance to ask a Superior Court judge to grant him bond while he waits for trial.
“This kidnapping of a minor bell was rung. Once that bell is rung, it’s really hard to unring it. It’s really hard to get that back and get a bond,” Merchant said.
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