FARGO, ND — A Tennessee woman has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Fargo police and a city detective of using artificial intelligence facial-recognition software to wrongly identify her as a bank theft suspect, setting off an arrest and extradition that she says upended her life.
Angela Lipps says she was babysitting neighbors’ children in July 2025 when U.S. Marshals arrested her at gunpoint. She alleges that she spent nearly four months in a county jail before being sent to North Dakota, where she remained in custody for about two more months before the charges were dropped.
The complaint says officers relied on AI-generated confirmation even though Lipps did not resemble the person seen in surveillance images. Her lawyers say investigators had no solid reason to believe she was the right suspect.
Arrest in Tennessee led to months in custody before North Dakota charges were dropped
According to the lawsuit, Lipps was first taken into custody in Tennessee and booked into a county jail, where she waited for extradition to North Dakota. Once there, she was charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft.
Her legal team says she had spent almost her entire life in north-central Tennessee and had never even been on an airplane before the arrest. The complaint also says that she was later released into the cold on Christmas Eve without a way to get home.
Attorneys say the charges were eventually dismissed, but only after Lipps had endured a long stretch away from her family and home. The lawsuit presents the arrest and transport as a case of mistaken identity that should never have reached that point.
Lawsuit says AI image match was treated as enough for a warrant
The complaint names the city of Fargo and Detective Lucas Heck, whom it says requested the warrant for Lipps’s arrest. Her lawyers allege that the case began with another woman’s use of a fake ID card and images investigators fed into an AI-powered facial-recognition system.
Even though Lipps did not look like the person in surveillance footage, the lawsuit says Heck treated the software’s result as enough to move forward. The filing claims he did not take additional steps to confirm whether the suspect was the right person before the arrest and extradition process began.
The lawsuit argues that officers should have known facial-recognition technology should not be the only basis for taking someone into custody and charging them. It says the department ignored the risks of using artificial intelligence in a way that could sweep up innocent people.
Lipps says jail conditions worsened the emotional and physical toll
Lipps says the experience left her with traumatic conditions in jail and constant fear about how long she would be held. The complaint says she worried about being wrongly convicted and imprisoned for years while she waited for answers.
Her lawyers say she missed family birthdays, spent her own birthday behind bars and lost Thanksgiving and Christmas with loved ones. The lawsuit also says she was denied basic care, including her medications and dentures, while in custody.
Those allegations are central to the damage claim, which argues that the harm went far beyond the arrest itself. The filing describes the custody period as a prolonged ordeal that caused both emotional distress and physical hardship.
She says the arrest cost her home, car and personal property
After her release, Lipps says she learned that her life in Tennessee had been badly disrupted. The lawsuit says she lost her residence, her car and much of her personal property while she was detained away from home.
Her attorneys say those losses created lasting hardships that cannot simply be undone now that the charges are gone. The complaint says the consequences of the mistaken arrest extended into her housing, transportation and everyday stability.
The filing also says Fargo police and their agents refused to accept responsibility or apologize despite repeated requests. That alleged refusal is part of why the lawsuit seeks accountability from the city and the detective named in the case.
Her lawyers are seeking $10 million and want police to change course on AI
Eric Rice, one of Lipps’s attorneys, told WKRN that she is seeking $10 million in compensation. He said the figure reflects the specific harm he says she suffered after being taken away at gunpoint and held away from her family.
Jay Greenwood, another lawyer for Lipps, said court documents show she was in Tennessee when the crimes she was accused of were being committed in Fargo. The legal team says that timeline should have prevented the case from moving forward.
Lipps’s complaint also frames the lawsuit as a warning about the growing use of facial-recognition technology in policing. She hopes, the filing says, that the case will push officers to use more care and consider the damage that can follow when someone is wrongly accused.
