FARGO, N.D. (KVLY/WVLT) – An investigation is underway after an East Tennessee grandmother was identified as a bank fraud suspect in North Dakota by an artificial intelligence facial recognition system.
Angela Lipps, of Elizabethton, said U.S. Marshals arrested her at gunpoint on July 14, 2025 while she was babysitting four children, adding that investigators used facial recognition software to match her to surveillance footage from a bank fraud case in Fargo, North Dakota, according to KVLY.
Lipps said she was held in a Tennessee jail for 108 days before being extradited to North Dakota, where she was held until Christmas Eve.
She was only released after her attorney pulled bank records showing she was in Tennessee at the time of the alleged crimes, resulting in the charges being dismissed.
Since then, Fargo Police Chief Dave Zibolski has released several statements regarding Lipps’ arrest. He said West Fargo Police submitted a photo from a fake ID to the A.I. system that returned Lipps as a potential match and that he did not know she was in custody until Dec. 5. West Fargo disputed this, saying that while they submitted the photo, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge her.
However, KVLY obtained an email showing that six detectives were notified of her arrest on July 14, the day of her arrest in Carter County.
While a lawsuit has yet to be filed, Zibolski said the city has received and is complying with preservation letters related to potential litigation, KVLY said.
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