Fargo Police Drop Bank Fraud Charges Against Tennessee Woman After Five Months in Custody

U.S. marshals arrested Angela Lipps at gunpoint at her home in Elizabethton, Tennessee, on July 14, 2025, while she was babysitting young children. The 50-year-old grandmother of five had never been to North Dakota and had never been on an airplane.

She was taken into custody in connection with a bank fraud case in Fargo, North Dakota, and held as a fugitive from justice in Carter County, Tennessee. Investigators had used facial recognition software to compare bank surveillance images with Angela Lipps' driver's license and social media photos. The bank fraud case began with reports in Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota.

The suspect allegedly used a false military ID to take money from accounts in what authorities described as a home equity loan bank fraud scheme. Detectives reviewed surveillance footage from terribly placed cameras positioned from above and used poor still images for the facial recognition search.

Dave Zibolski, then-Fargo police chief, described the tool as an AI function through the North Dakota State Intelligence Center.

The search pointed investigators to Angela Lipps, after which detectives looked at her social media pages and moved forward with the case. Jay Greenwood, the Fargo defense attorney appointed to represent Angela Lipps, said police did not do any other investigation prior to her arrest. "They did not do any other investigation prior to her arrest in bringing her to North Dakota," Greenwood said.

Angela Lipps told authorities from the beginning that she had never been to North Dakota and had never been on an airplane. Greenwood added that she really doesn't leave the 100- to 200-mile radius of Elizabethton. Tennessee authorities notified the Cass County Sheriff's Office on October 20, 2025, that Angela Lipps had a waiver of extradition and was available for transport.