Angela Lipps spent nearly six months in jail for a crime 1,200 miles away. Fargo police used AI facial recognition to identify the 50-year-old Tennessee grandmother as a bank fraud suspect. She had never been to North Dakota. WDAY News broke the story on March 11, 2026.
U.S. Marshals arrested Lipps at gunpoint on July 14, 2025, while she was babysitting four young children at her home in north-central Tennessee. She was charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft tied to a bank fraud ring in Fargo, North Dakota. As an alleged fugitive, she was held without bail.
Fargo detectives had been investigating a series of bank withdrawals in April and May 2025. Surveillance video showed a woman using a forged U.S. Army military ID to pull tens of thousands of dollars from Fargo-area banks. To identify the suspect, police ran the footage through facial recognition software. The system returned Angela Lipps.
The detective then checked Lipps' social media accounts and Tennessee driver's license photo. According to court documents obtained by WDAY through an open records request, the detective wrote that Lipps "appeared to be the suspect based on facial features, body type and hairstyle and color." No one from Fargo Police ever called Lipps to question her before the arrest.
It was so scary, I can still see it in my head, over and over again.
— Angela Lipps told WDAY News about the day of her arrest
Lipps sat in a Tennessee jail for 108 days. North Dakota officers did not pick her up until October 30, 2025. On October 31, she made her first court appearance in Fargo and spoke to police for the first time.
Her North Dakota defense attorney, Jay Greenwood, immediately requested her bank records. They showed Lipps had been depositing Social Security checks, buying cigarettes at a gas station, ordering pizza, and using Uber Eats through a cash app in Tennessee at the exact times police claimed she was committing fraud 1,200 miles away in Fargo. On December 19, police interviewed Lipps for the first time at Cass County Jail. Five days later, on Christmas Eve, the case was dismissed and she was released.
I just think putting someone through what Angela went through for six months sitting in jail in Tennessee and here is just unfathomable. That investigative process could've been done long before I was involved.
— Jay Greenwood, defense attorney, told KVRR
Fargo police did not cover Lipps' travel home. Local defense attorneys paid for a hotel room and food on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Adam Martin, founder of the F5 Project (a reentry assistance organization), drove Lipps to Chicago on December 26 so she could get back to Tennessee.
During her six months in jail, Lipps lost her home, her car, and her dog. She had no income to pay bills while incarcerated. Lipps is now working with two lawyers, including one based in Minneapolis, on a civil lawsuit against the Fargo Police Department.
WDAY reporter Matt Henson pressed the police chief at his retirement press conference. Henson asked Zibolski on March 11, 2026, why no one from Fargo Police ever spoke with Lipps during her five months in jail. "Thank you, Matt, for that question, but we are not here to talk about that today," Zibolski replied. Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney declined to answer whether the chief's sudden retirement was related to the case.
West Fargo police identified Lipps through the same facial recognition software. They linked her to a similar fraud case in their jurisdiction but have held off on filing charges. Lipps is the eighth documented person in the United States wrongfully arrested based on facial recognition, according to ByteIota. The real suspect, who used the forged military ID, has not been identified or arrested.
Have a story? Become a contributor.
We work with independent researchers and cybersecurity professionals. Send us a tip or submit your article for editorial review.
