Woman Claims Faulty Facial Recognition Software Led to Her Arrest and 5 Months in Jail

Sympathy and some cash were raised March 16 for a 50-year-old woman who spent five months in jail after she said she was wrongly accused in a bank fraud case by police who identified her as a suspect using facial recognition software.

Meanwhile, local authorities say the investigation of Angela Lipps of Elizabethton, Tennessee, isn’t over.

“Angela is still a person of interest,” Tim Mahoney, mayor of Fargo, North Dakota, told The Epoch Times.

Lipps stated on a GoFundMe page that she was recovering from the ordeal at home while donations trickled in from around the country, reaching over $24,000 by the end of the day.

Last spring, Fargo police were investigating a string of bank fraud cases that occurred in April and May 2025. The suspect used a fake U.S. Army military ID card to withdraw thousands of dollars, according to WDAY TV News.

Detectives relied on federal national databases that use facial recognition technology to review surveillance videos, Police Chief Dave Zibolski told The Epoch Times.

Lipps was flagged by the artificial intelligence (AI) software. After further investigation, detectives sought an arrest warrant.

According to Lipps, she was watching four young children at her home when federal officers arrested her on July 14, 2025.

Lipps said she had never visited North Dakota, “or even any of the surrounding states.” A judge dismissed her case in December, releasing her from jail after five months.

“They arrested me at gunpoint and took me away,” Lipps told Michael Nessa, who set up the GoFundMe page with Lipps’s permission on March 14. “Until then, I had never had a gun pointed at me. These poor children saw everything happen. It breaks my heart. They were so scared.”

On Oct. 30, Lipps was transported to jail from Tennessee, Nessa said. The next day, she was arraigned before North Dakota District Court Judge Constance Cleveland, who deemed her to be a flight risk and set her bail at $100,000.

The state offered her a plea deal of 10 years.

On Dec. 19, she and her attorney met for the first time with the district attorney and Fargo city detective Lucas Heck, Nessa said.

Lipps’s family couldn’t provide evidence that she was not in Fargo until after the Dec. 19 meeting, according to Nessa.

Her attorney, Jay Greenwood, told WDAY News he was able to show the court Lipps’ bank records to prove that she had been in Tennessee at the same time that the crimes were being committed in North Dakota.

The district attorney formally dropped the charges, and the judge ordered her release on Dec. 24, the Fargo city manager’s office confirmed.

The police chief said the judge’s dismissal allows for the case to be resubmitted if more evidence is found.

“The issuance of an arrest warrant for Ms. Lipps indicated that a judge determined probable cause existed for the charges,” Zibolski said. “While the charges were later dismissed without prejudice, that procedural step simply means the charges may be re-filed if additional investigation supports doing so. The investigation remains ongoing with respect to all individuals involved, and the [Fargo Police Department] continues to follow the criminal justice process.”

Zibolski said he couldn’t provide more details without compromising the investigation.

The Epoch Times reached out to a number associated with Lipps but didn’t receive a response. Her attorney was in court March 16 and didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Lipps told Nessa she planned to use the money raised for her to rebuild her life. According to the fundraising page, she was living with neighbors in a trailer park after losing everything she had, including her dog. She wanted to find a place to rent and buy clothes and shoes, and possibly a used car.

“My heart broke for her,” Nessa said on the fundraising page. “It was also very scary. If this could happen to her it could happen to anyone. She lost everything. It reminds me of when people have a house fire but so much worse.”

According to Nessa, Lipps reached out to him and told him she was “weak but emotionally overwhelmed and so grateful” for the fundraising.