Grandma faced 6 months in prison after AI declared her a 'robbery suspect' — except she had never been to the place
Police were investigating a string of bank fraud cases with an AI facial recognition tool when they mistook the suspect's features with those of Lipps
50-year-old Angela Lipps, a mother of three and grandmother of five, experienced a bizarre situation while babysitting in Tennesee. While investigating a string of bank fraud cases using an AI facial recognition tool, Fargo police mistakenly identified Lipps as the suspect. Surprisingly, they made no effort to connect her to the actual robberies, choosing to escalate it instead. It was July 14, 2025, when she was dragged from Tennessee to a jail in North Dakota, a place she had never been to before, NBC News shared in a report on March 31.
Detectives investigating bank fraud cases between April and May 2025 were reviewing surveillance video of a woman who used a fake US Army military ID to withdraw tens of thousands of dollars. They took the aid of a facial recognition tool called 'Clearview AI' to crack the suspect’s identity. The facial features of the potential suspect matched those of Lipps, as well as her body type and hairstyle. She was charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft.
"I've never been to North Dakota, I don't know anyone from North Dakota," Lipps said, according to a North Dakota news outlet, InForum. At the time police knocked on her door with the warrant and a gun, she was babysitting four children in her home in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Lipps told WDAY News that the police hadn't even called her to confirm details, or hear her out.
"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,” Lipps described, and confessed, “I was terrified.” The four kids stared at her, neighbors watched, and they lugged her out of the house and into the police van. She had never been on an airplane before, and this would be her first ever flight, unfortunately, to jail.
Aboard the airplane, a restraint device was strapped around her waist, and she was handcuffed. "It was so scary, I can still see it in my head, over and over again," Lipps shared with InForum. She spent nearly six months in custody for a crime she did not commit. But the police didn’t transport her from Tennessee until October 20, 2025, when Tennessee authorities notified the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, as a spokesperson told FOX 9. 108 days after her arrest, she appeared in a North Dakota courtroom.
After a harrowing trial in jail, a glimmer of hope emerged. It took just five minutes for the whole case to fall apart. It was December 19, 2025. Lipps and her lawyer, Jay Greenwood, sat down with a detective. Greenwood had acquired her bank records, and the records held clear evidence that the grandma was more than 1,200 miles away in Tennessee at the time of the investigation. Around the same time, Greenwood revealed, Lipps was depositing Social Security checks, buying cigarettes and pizza at a gas station, and using Cash App to buy an Uber Eats.
The case was leaning on Lipps’ side. On December 24, she was finally released from the Cass County jail. But she was left stranded in Fargo as the police didn’t pay for her trip back home. "I had my summer clothes on, no coat, it was so cold outside, snow on the ground, scared, I wanted out but I didn't know what I was going to do, how I was going to get home," Lipps recalled.
Local attorneys covered the cost of a hotel room and food on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and the F5 Project, a local non-profit, helped her return to Tennessee. The story didn’t end there. All the while she had been in jail, she lost everything — her home, her car, her dog, and the shoes she just bought. One error by the police detective cost her everything and left her forlorn. Are mistakes like these common? Yes, unfortunately. The Innocent Project documents that there were at least 8 to 10 cases of wrongful arrests in the US in early 2025, caused by mistaken identity due to AI tools.
After Lipps was proven innocent, she urged the Fargo Police Department and others that people and organizations not use such systems directly without careful handling. Meanwhile, Clearview clarified that the tool is designed to generate leads. It does not make identifications, draw conclusions, or recommend arrests.
As for Lipps, she is currently living with her neighbors. An online fundraiser has been initiated on GoFundMe, which has already raised $78,659. “I shake when I think about that day. I am not the same woman I was. I don’t think I will ever be,” she remarks, petrified.
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