Tennessee Grandmother Sues North Dakota Authorities Over Alleged AI Facial Recognition Error Leading to Wrongful Imprisonment

A Tennessee grandmother has initiated legal action against a North Dakota city and its police department, contending that officials wrongfully held her for close to six months following an alleged misuse of artificial intelligence facial recognition technology during a bank theft investigation.

Angela Lipps, 50, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, recounted being arrested at gunpoint in July 2025 by police who arrived at her neighbor's home while she was looking after four young children.

The complaint, submitted on September 15, 2026, asserts that law enforcement relied exclusively on a faulty AI facial recognition match to extradite Lipps from Tennessee to North Dakota, despite her having no connection to the alleged crime or the state.

"I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days," Lipps stated in a GoFundMe post. "They said I was fugitive from justice. I had no bail. No one interviewed me. I just sat and waited."

The Bank Theft Investigation and AI Use

The bank theft incidents took place in April and May 2025, when an unidentified woman reportedly utilized fraudulent identification cards and stolen identities to commit bank fraud in Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota, according to the lawsuit.

Investigators then reportedly used a photograph from one of the fraudulent ID cards presented by the suspect, rather than surveillance camera footage, to conduct facial recognition searches with Clearview AI, prosecutors alleged.

Clearview AI explicitly mandates that facial recognition matches should be considered as potential leads, yet the Fargo police department allegedly characterized the AI match as a definitive identification without disclosing that it had not been independently verified, the complaint detailed.

Conversely, the West Fargo Police Department reportedly opted not to pursue charges because the AI match lacked corroboration. A West Fargo police captain reportedly described AI facial recognition as "close to a last-ditch effort" in police investigations, according to the lawsuit.

Allegations of Ignored Evidence and Detention

The complaint further states that Detective Lucas Heck allegedly failed to review Lipps’ financial or travel records, which would have shown she was in Tennessee during the time of the bank thefts. He also reportedly neglected to conduct photo lineups with bank tellers. Furthermore, surveillance video reportedly depicted noticeable physical differences between Lipps and the actual suspect, including distinct body builds and a neck tattoo on Lipps that was absent on the individual who committed the crimes.

"Heck ignored, concealed, and misrepresented exculpatory evidence that Lipps did not commit the bank thefts," the complaint asserted.

On July 14, 2025, U.S. Marshals surrounded a neighbor’s residence in Tennessee and arrested Lipps at gunpoint, based on a nationwide warrant, prosecutors confirmed. Lipps was subsequently extradited to North Dakota and reportedly held on a $100,000 bond, facing eight felony counts, some of which carried maximum sentences of up to 10 years in prison.

Exoneration and Subsequent Hardship

Prosecutors ultimately dismissed all charges against Lipps on December 24, 2025, after she provided bank records that unequivocally demonstrated her presence in Tennessee when the bank thefts occurred. Upon her release, Lipps discovered significant personal losses.

"When she was released, she found that her residence, car, and personal property were lost while she was absent," the complaint noted.

Official Acknowledgement and Broader Concerns

Following public scrutiny, the Fargo Police Department and the city of Fargo publicly acknowledged investigative errors during a press conference in March 2026.

Mayor Tim Mahoney commented, "When chief found some errors that were made in this area of where we got our facial recognition and how that worked, we immediately addressed it."

An expert in facial recognition technology, speaking on the increasing prevalence of such issues, highlighted the broader implications of these errors.

"We are aware of 16 misidentifications stemming from a face recognition match where someone was wrongfully arrested and spent time in jail because of that misidentification, and in many of these cases, it was because additional investigative steps weren't taken to prove, or in these cases to disprove, the face recognition match," the expert stated.

The expert further emphasized the need for updated police procedures:

"We're asking officers to do a different job now, such that we need to update how we think about these workflows."

Concerns about the technology's reliability and its application by law enforcement continue to grow.

"We've been seeing these kinds of wrongful arrests happening for at least five or six years now out of this kind of AI technology. And the rate of them seems to be increasing," the expert added.

There have also been instances where transparency regarding AI use is reportedly lacking.

"We've seen cases where police intentionally avoid making any notes about their use of facial recognition technology or other AI."