Days after he was brutally attacked by a young man he had employed part-time with his lawn-mowing business, Fayette resident Arthur Cardell — a former police officer — helped save the suspect’s life.

Arnold Bernard Wesley Jr., 23, had been cornered by police seeking to arrest him for the assault. Threatening suicide with a gun in his mouth, saying he had nothing left to live for, officers on the scene called Cardell and asked him to speak with Wesley.

Cardell managed to talk Wesley into surrendering peacefully.

During Wesley’s criminal trial Monday, Cardell recalled the conversation, noting that Wesley was using a revolver given to him by his wife when he made detective in the Atlanta Police Department in the 1960s. Cardell said he was worried about the safety of the officers trying to capture Wesley.

“Me being a former police officer, I didn’t want none of them to get hit, especially with my gun,” a tearful Cardell told the court Monday afternoon.

Wesley, 23, of 8901 Campbellton Road was convicted Tuesday morning of armed robbery, kidnapping with bodily injury and theft by taking (motor vehicle). He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in prison followed by another 10 years in prison by Fayette County Superior Court Judge Johnnie L. Caldwell Jr. Two additional counts of aggravated assault were dismissed by Caldwell on a technicality relating to the indictments.

Earlier in his testimony, Cardell said Wesley dragged him downstairs to the basement of his Lady Carolyn Court home. Cardell said Wesley tied up his arms with duct tape while demanding the account numbers and access codes to his checking account. Cardell said Wesley pointed his own pistol at him and threatened to kill him.

“He said, ‘You hurry up and give them to me or I’m gonna have to kill you,’” Cardell said.

Cardell said after Wesley threatened to kill him, the young man eventually left the residence, leaving Cardell in the basement bound by duct tape and a lengthy electrical extension cord. Ultimately Cardell was found by a sheriff’s deputy who was initially investigating the case as a missing person incident.

Cardell, who was unconscious at the time, recalled waking up to see an EMT rescuing him.

“I could’ve kissed him,” a grateful Cardell testified in court Monday.

When Wesley was confronted by police after the attack, he thought Cardell had died, a U.S. marshal testified.

The aggravated assault charges which were dropped by the court had to do with the language drawn up for those counts in the indictment.

Lead defense attorney Joe Saia successfully argued that the state hadn’t proven the elements of two aggravated assault charges. Saia said the indictment specifically stated that Cardell was struck with a gun and with a crowbar, but there was no evidence of that given during the state’s portion of the case.

Judge Caldwell agreed and granted a directed verdict on both aggravated assault counts against Wesley, taking both charges out from consideration by the jury.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Al Dixon argued that the jury could infer from the massive wound on Cardell that he was initially struck with the gun.

Cardell testified that the gun was pointed at him and that Wesley also intimated a threat to using the crowbar, but Caldwell noted the indictment specifically claims Wesley used the gun and crowbar to strike Cardell during the attack.

Had the indictment been written to say that Wesley “assaulted” Cardell with the gun or crowbar, the decision would have been different, Caldwell noted.

In one of the trial’s lighter moments, Dixon asked Cardell whether he had drunk any of an open bottle of wine that was pictured in a forensic photograph taken at his home.

“I needed it, but I didn’t drink it,” Cardell said lightheartedly, drawing laughter from the jury.

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