New charges in food delivery case

General’s caretaker accused of trying to influence driver.

On Aug. 15, Fayetteville police arrested a retired four-star general after he allegedly assaulted a Chinese food delivery driver.

On Friday, they arrest- ed the general’s caregiver — and accused him of attempting to influence the driver’s version of events.

Timothy Allen Bedgood, 44, “spoke with the victim, a delivery driver, after the driver had spoken to police, in an attempt to have him change his initial story,” Fayetteville police spokesman Lt. Mike Whitlow said Monday in an email. He was charged with a single count of influencing a witness, a felony.

No further details were available.

The arrest came two weeks after the incident inside the Carriage Chase home of 84-year-old William Livsey, a retired — and decorated — four-star United States Army general who led troops in Korea and Vietnam and has a stretch of Ga. 314 in Fayetteville named in his honor.

During that encounter, police said at the time, Livsey’s debit card was declined when he attempted to pay for Chinese food delivered to his home by local restaurant Royal Chef. Livsey offered to pay with a check, but the deliveryman told him they were not accepted and said he would have to take the food back.

According to police, Livsey then grabbed the deliveryman’s throat and facial hair, pushed him and pinned him against the refrigerator. Two other people in the home reportedly took the food and began eating it.

Livsey remembers it differently. In a previous interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he said the driver “shoved a couple of fe- male guests and I shoved him. They (police) said I put my hands around his neck but I don’t think I did that,” Livsey said.

The delivery driver called police after leaving the home.

Livsey was arrested and charged with robbery, obstruction, theft of services, simple assault and terroristic threats. He was later released on his own recognizance.