A Tennessee grandmother spent five months behind bars after facial recognition software wrongly pegged her for bank fraud in North Dakota—a state she’d never visited.
Angela Lipps, 50, was arrested at her rental home in July 2025 and extradited over 1,000 miles to Fargo at the end of October, per her GoFundMe page. West Fargo police used Clearview AI, which flagged her as a suspect with “similar features” in a local fraud case. Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski told CNN his team then did “additional investigative steps independent of AI” to confirm her as the culprit.
At a Tuesday press conference, Zibolski admitted West Fargo’s system was “part of the issue” in the botched arrest. Lipps was also held three extra months in Tennessee because Cass County Sheriff’s Office failed to share her extradition waiver with North Dakota authorities.
Her first airplane ride ever delivered her to Fargo, where she was “terrified, exhausted, and humiliated,” Lipps wrote on the fundraiser. A lawyer quickly got bank records showing she was in Tennessee during the fraud—unraveling the case in “five minutes.”
Charges were dismissed without prejudice on Dec. 23 after a detective, state attorney, and judge agreed more investigation was needed. Lipps walked free on Christmas Eve, but the damage was done: her reputation ruined, rental home lost, and belongings seized from an unpaid storage unit.
“I’m not the same woman I was. I don’t think I ever will be,” she wrote. The GoFundMe hit $68,000 by March 29.
Fargo police are cutting ties with West Fargo’s Clearview AI, which they don’t oversee. Zibolski said they’ll now share all facial recognition IDs monthly with their Investigation Division commander and submit surveillance photos to trained agencies for better checks.
