FARGO, ND - A Tennessee grandmother spent more than five months in jail after police used an AI facial recognition software tool to link her to a string of crimes committed in North Dakota, a state that she said she has never been to before.
"I've never been to North Dakota, I don't know anyone from North Dakota," 50-year-old Angela Lipps said to WDAY News. When recalling her arrest she said, "It was so scary. I can still see it in my head, over and over again."
Since the incident, authorities with the Fargo Police Department (FPD) acknowledged "a few errors" in the case and pledged changes in their operations but stopped shot of issuing a direct apology, CNN reported. Lipps was first arrested in Tennessee on July 14, 2025.
Unbeknownst to Lipps, a warrant had been issued for her arrest weeks early in Fargo, over 1,000 miles away from her Tennessee home. Months before, several instances of bank fraud had occurred in and around Fargo, according to police.
In their search for a suspect in the bank fraud cases, investigators used "our partner agency's facial recognition technology" as well as "additional investigative steps independent of AI to assist in identification" before submitting the report to the Cass County State Attorney's Office, FPD Chief Dave Zibolski said in a statement to CNN.
During a news conference on Tuesday, March 24, Zibolski said that his department's reliance on some of the information from a neighboring agency's AI system is "part of the issue," referring to errors made in Lipp's case.
"At some point, our partner agency over at West Fargo purchased their own AI facial recognition system that we were not aware of at the executive level …, and we would not have allowed that to be used, and it has since been prohibited,” he said.
The West Fargo Police Department uses Clearview AI, a startup with a database of billions of photos scraped from the internet, including social media. Clearview "identified a potential suspect with similar features to Angela Lipps" and West Fargo police shared that report with FPD.
West Fargo police, however, did not forward any charges and didn't have enough evidence to charge anyone for the fraud case in West Fargo.
On July 1, 2025, a North Dakota judge signed a warrant for Lipps' arrest, with nationwide extradition. She was arrested on July 14, 2025, and spent over three months in a Tennessee jail before being extradited to North Dakota. It wasn't until October that Tennessee law enforcement told the Cass County Sheriff's Office that they had Lipps' extradition waiver.
She was facing multiple charges, including felony theft and felony unauthorized use of personal identifying information, according to her lawyers.
Lipps' extradition to North Dakota, she said in her GoFundMe, was terrifying: "It was the first time I had ever been on an airplane," she wrote. "I was terrified and exhausted and humiliated." In Fargo, she was given a lawyer who found bank records showing she had been in Tennessee during the time of the crimes.
On December 12, the States Attorney's Office informed FPD that the defense had produced "potential exculpatory evidence." On December 23, FPD, the state's attorney and the judge "mutually agreed to dismiss the charges without prejudice to allow for further investigation,” according to Fargo police. Lipps was released from custody on Christmas Eve.
Lipps, a mother of three and grandmother of five, had never been to North Dakota before her extradition. After her ordeal, she said she never plans to return to the state. "I'm just glad it's over," she told WDAY. "I'll never go back to North Dakota."
Her lawyers are exploring civil rights claims but have yet to file a lawsuit. Zibolski, Fargo’s police chief, said authorities had identified a “couple of errors” in the investigative process that led to Lipps being identified as a potential suspect in the fraud cases.
"They forwarded that information to our detectives, who then assumed wrongly that they had also sent in the surveillance photos with that photo ID,” Zibolski said. The chief said Fargo police will no longer be “sending or utilizing information” from West Fargo’s AI system because “it’s their own system – we don’t know how it’s run or how it’s overseen."
Instead, Fargo police will work with state and federal authorities, including the North Dakota State and Local Intelligence Center, he said. Additionally, all facial recognition identifications will be submitted to the Investigations Division commander on a monthly basis, “so that we can keep a closer eye on this evolving technology,” he said.
He also addressed the months between Lipps' extradition and her first interviews with FPD. "In talking with Cass County and the State’s Attorney’s Office, there’s not an easy mechanism for them to notify us if someone arrested on our felony warrant is into custody,” he said. The department is considering improvements, including a daily review of the booking roster.
Asked if the department plans to apologize to Lipps, the chief said, "At this juncture, we still don’t know who’s involved and who’s not involved” in the fraud cases. "We’re going to have to whittle through all of this kind of vast network of people and who’s involved,” he said.
Lipps' attorneys said that they appreciated the police department's efforts towards correcting AI-related issues in the future but criticized what they characterized as a lack of "basic investigative efforts" before issuing Lipps a warrant.
"Officers knew that Angela was a Tennessee resident, and we have seen no investigation by officers to determine whether she traveled to or was in North Dakota at the time of the bank thefts,” they said in a news release after the Tuesday news conference. “Instead, an officer used AI facial recognition as a shortcut for basic investigation, resulting in an innocent woman being detained and transported halfway across the country to answer for charges that she had nothing to do with."
"I've never been to North Dakota, I don't know anyone from North Dakota," 50-year-old Angela Lipps said to WDAY News. When recalling her arrest she said, "It was so scary. I can still see it in my head, over and over again."
Since the incident, authorities with the Fargo Police Department (FPD) acknowledged "a few errors" in the case and pledged changes in their operations but stopped shot of issuing a direct apology, CNN reported. Lipps was first arrested in Tennessee on July 14, 2025.
Unbeknownst to Lipps, a warrant had been issued for her arrest weeks early in Fargo, over 1,000 miles away from her Tennessee home. Months before, several instances of bank fraud had occurred in and around Fargo, according to police.
In their search for a suspect in the bank fraud cases, investigators used "our partner agency's facial recognition technology" as well as "additional investigative steps independent of AI to assist in identification" before submitting the report to the Cass County State Attorney's Office, FPD Chief Dave Zibolski said in a statement to CNN.
During a news conference on Tuesday, March 24, Zibolski said that his department's reliance on some of the information from a neighboring agency's AI system is "part of the issue," referring to errors made in Lipp's case.
"At some point, our partner agency over at West Fargo purchased their own AI facial recognition system that we were not aware of at the executive level …, and we would not have allowed that to be used, and it has since been prohibited,” he said.
The West Fargo Police Department uses Clearview AI, a startup with a database of billions of photos scraped from the internet, including social media. Clearview "identified a potential suspect with similar features to Angela Lipps" and West Fargo police shared that report with FPD.
West Fargo police, however, did not forward any charges and didn't have enough evidence to charge anyone for the fraud case in West Fargo.
On July 1, 2025, a North Dakota judge signed a warrant for Lipps' arrest, with nationwide extradition. She was arrested on July 14, 2025, and spent over three months in a Tennessee jail before being extradited to North Dakota. It wasn't until October that Tennessee law enforcement told the Cass County Sheriff's Office that they had Lipps' extradition waiver.
She was facing multiple charges, including felony theft and felony unauthorized use of personal identifying information, according to her lawyers.
Lipps' extradition to North Dakota, she said in her GoFundMe, was terrifying: "It was the first time I had ever been on an airplane," she wrote. "I was terrified and exhausted and humiliated." In Fargo, she was given a lawyer who found bank records showing she had been in Tennessee during the time of the crimes.
On December 12, the States Attorney's Office informed FPD that the defense had produced "potential exculpatory evidence." On December 23, FPD, the state's attorney and the judge "mutually agreed to dismiss the charges without prejudice to allow for further investigation,” according to Fargo police. Lipps was released from custody on Christmas Eve.
Lipps, a mother of three and grandmother of five, had never been to North Dakota before her extradition. After her ordeal, she said she never plans to return to the state. "I'm just glad it's over," she told WDAY. "I'll never go back to North Dakota."
Her lawyers are exploring civil rights claims but have yet to file a lawsuit. Zibolski, Fargo’s police chief, said authorities had identified a “couple of errors” in the investigative process that led to Lipps being identified as a potential suspect in the fraud cases.
"They forwarded that information to our detectives, who then assumed wrongly that they had also sent in the surveillance photos with that photo ID,” Zibolski said. The chief said Fargo police will no longer be “sending or utilizing information” from West Fargo’s AI system because “it’s their own system – we don’t know how it’s run or how it’s overseen."
Instead, Fargo police will work with state and federal authorities, including the North Dakota State and Local Intelligence Center, he said. Additionally, all facial recognition identifications will be submitted to the Investigations Division commander on a monthly basis, “so that we can keep a closer eye on this evolving technology,” he said.
He also addressed the months between Lipps' extradition and her first interviews with FPD. "In talking with Cass County and the State’s Attorney’s Office, there’s not an easy mechanism for them to notify us if someone arrested on our felony warrant is into custody,” he said. The department is considering improvements, including a daily review of the booking roster.
Asked if the department plans to apologize to Lipps, the chief said, "At this juncture, we still don’t know who’s involved and who’s not involved” in the fraud cases. "We’re going to have to whittle through all of this kind of vast network of people and who’s involved,” he said.
Lipps' attorneys said that they appreciated the police department's efforts towards correcting AI-related issues in the future but criticized what they characterized as a lack of "basic investigative efforts" before issuing Lipps a warrant.
"Officers knew that Angela was a Tennessee resident, and we have seen no investigation by officers to determine whether she traveled to or was in North Dakota at the time of the bank thefts,” they said in a news release after the Tuesday news conference. “Instead, an officer used AI facial recognition as a shortcut for basic investigation, resulting in an innocent woman being detained and transported halfway across the country to answer for charges that she had nothing to do with."
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