By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
(CNN) — For Mahendra “Mick” Patel, 2025 will always be the year his life turned upside down.
What began as an errand for his elderly mother in March devolved into an attempted kidnapping accusation, forcing the 57-year-old father to abandon his real estate business and leaving his family desperate to find a way to clear his name.
Instead of getting ready for a summer filled with family vacations and celebrations, he sat inside a Georgia jail cell and racked his brain: How could what he perceived to be an innocent exchange between two strangers at a Walmart store turn into felony charges?
Patel’s prior run-ins with the law paled in comparison to the monthslong upheaval he was about to experience – now he was swept into the ranks of Americans who say they were wrongfully accused of a crime.
From a Walmart aisle to a jail cell in days
It was mid-March when Patel ventured off after dinner to a Walmart store in Cobb County, just northwest of Atlanta. As he walked the aisles, he spotted a woman riding a motorized cart and thought she could help him find some Tylenol.
And so she did.
The woman, Caroline Miller, 26, sat on the cart with her 2-year-old son on her lap, and an older child was sitting on the cart’s footwell. As the two adults engaged in conversation, the scooter clipped a store display and Patel noticed the toddler looked like he was about to fall – off the scooter and his mother’s lap.
What happened next left Patel and Miller with a different understanding of the interaction.
Patel said he reached out to make sure the boy wouldn’t fall. Meanwhile, Miller claimed the man grabbed her son out of her lap when she raised her hand to point in the direction of the Tylenol.
“I’m like, ‘No, no … what are you doing?’ He pulled him,” Miller told CNN affiliate WSB in March. “I pulled him back. We’re tug-of-warring.”
CNN has made multiple attempts to speak with Miller. When reached by phone, her father declined to comment.
Patel, a retired engineer and father of two, left the store within a few minutes after paying for the Tylenol. He didn’t give the encounter a second thought until three days later when he was handcuffed on the side of a Georgia highway.
He had been charged with criminal attempt to commit kidnapping, simple assault and simple battery.
“They (police officers) said ‘we have a warrant against you,’ and that’s it, they took me to jail,” Patel said.
His time behind bars depleted his body and tested his strength
For 47 days, Patel endured legal proceedings, a lack of nutrition and violent threats while being held without bond in jail, he said.
Patel went from being his own boss and a board member of a global organization of volunteers dedicated to serving children to spending his days and nights at the Cobb County Jail among people accused or convicted of violent crimes.
His body quickly felt the strain of his new surroundings. First, he didn’t have medication to treat his hypertension for several days and later, he lost at least 17 pounds because he would only eat milk, rice, beans and peanut butter due to a lack of vegetarian options.
With his wife out of town on work, his two adult daughters living states away and his non-English-speaking elderly mother at home unaware he was behind bars, no family members visited.
Detention wasn’t new to him. He had been in prison once before and worked to rebuild his life after.
In 2013, Patel Read more