Skip to main content
NOPE
Medium reported severity Lawsuit Ongoing

Reno, Nevada: a casino's facial recognition system wrongly matched a patron to a barred man in September 2023, and police arrested him and held him for about eleven hours until fingerprints confirmed his identity and he was released, his federal lawsuit alleges

Jason Killinger, a UPS truck driver, alleges in a federal civil-rights complaint filed in July 2025 that on 17 September 2023 the Peppermill Casino in Reno reported to police that its AI facial recognition software had identified him as a man barred from the casino months earlier. According to the complaint, casino security handcuffed him, and the responding Reno police officer, told the system had found a 100 percent match, did not examine his other identification and took him to jail as an unidentified person, where fingerprints confirmed who he was. The complaint says he was handcuffed for about four hours, starting in the casino security office, spent about eleven hours in police and jail custody, and was treated the next day for bruised wrists. According to the complaint, he was then charged with trespassing, and a prosecutor dismissed the charge without prejudice at the bench trial. Casino.org reports that he settled a suit against the casino. In March 2026 the court let him add the City of Reno and a municipal liability claim over facial recognition policies, but refused a new wrongful arrest claim against the officer on qualified immunity grounds. In September 2026 the ACLU, the ACLU of Nevada and the Innocence Project filed a proposed amicus brief supporting him. The case is ongoing.

AI system
Unidentified facial recognition system
Occurred
17 Sept 2023
Reported
11 November 2025
Event location
United States
What the AI did
Made a claim about the person
Reported harm
Loss of LibertyLegal HarmPhysical InjuryReputational Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Justice · Privacy · Everyday life
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 3 underlying accounts
7 claims: 1 documented, 6 reported. 5 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: Facial recognition software used by the Peppermill Casino's security system in Reno, which the complaint calls 'A.I. facial recognition software'; vendor not named in the inspected sources

What Happened

According to the complaint, Killinger had played craps at several Reno casinos on the evening of 16 September 2023 and arrived at the Peppermill, where he held a player's card, at about 11:30 p.m. In the early morning of 17 September casino security, acting on a match from the casino's facial recognition software, told him he was a man they had barred months earlier for sleeping on the premises, handcuffed him and held him in the security office. He produced a Nevada REAL ID driver's license and, the complaint says, carried other identification and had more in his car. The complaint quotes the responding officer's body-worn camera recording, in which he tells his supervisor that the casino's 'artificial intelligence software' produced a 100 percent match, and alleges that the officer, after speaking to a supervisor, chose to arrest him as a John Doe and take him to the Washoe County Detention Facility for fingerprinting rather than examine the other documents, and then wrote reports stating that his identification conflicted. Fingerprints confirmed his identity at the jail; he was released on his own recognizance that afternoon after about eleven hours in police and jail custody, not counting the time casino security held him, and went to urgent care the next day with bruised wrists. A trespass complaint was filed against him under his own name; at a November 2023 bench trial the prosecutor dismissed it without prejudice. His July 2025 complaint against the officer pleaded fabrication of evidence, judicial deception, malicious prosecution and excessive force. In March 2026 the court allowed a municipal liability claim against the City of Reno concerning policies on facial recognition software and handcuffing, but held a proposed wrongful arrest claim futile under qualified immunity because Killinger had conceded that no Ninth Circuit case clearly established that arrests based solely on facial recognition were unlawful and cited no case law in reply. Reno outlets KOLO and News 4 reported the expanded suit; the ACLU, ACLU of Nevada and Innocence Project filed a proposed amicus brief in September 2026 asking the court to rule that police lacked probable cause to arrest him on a facial recognition result and that the city is liable for failing to train officers. All incident facts are allegations on which no court has ruled.

Reported harm

According to his complaint, Killinger was handcuffed for about four hours, arrested and held in police and jail custody for about eleven hours after the casino's facial recognition system wrongly matched him to a barred man; he was bruised by the handcuffs, prosecuted for trespassing until the charge was dismissed without prejudice, and left with an arrest record.

Outcome

Ongoing

Killinger v. Jager, No. 3:25-cv-00388 (D. Nev.), filed 30 July 2025 against the arresting officer; on 27 March 2026 the court granted leave to add the City of Reno and a municipal liability claim and denied leave to add a wrongful arrest claim; a first amended complaint was filed on 2 April 2026. The ACLU, ACLU of Nevada and Innocence Project filed a proposed amicus brief (ECF No. 96-1) on 21 September 2026. Casino.org reports an earlier suit against the Peppermill settled for an undisclosed amount. Killinger's motion for reconsideration (ECF No. 60) and motion for leave to file a second amended complaint (ECF No. 63), filed in April 2026, his 12 September 2026 motion for partial summary judgment on municipal liability (ECF No. 95) and the amici's motion for leave (ECF No. 96) show no ruling on the docket through ECF No. 107 (24 September 2026).

What remains unknown

  • Which facial recognition product the casino used and what match threshold it applied.
  • Whether the court has ruled on the pending motion for partial summary judgment on municipal liability (ECF No. 95) that the amicus brief supports.
  • Whether the court has granted Killinger's April 2026 motion for reconsideration (ECF No. 60) or his motion for leave to file a second amended complaint (ECF No. 63).
  • The terms and date of the reported settlement with the Peppermill Casino.
  • Whether the officer's deposition admissions, which the March 2026 order mentions without describing, and the amicus brief's statement that Peppermill's records show Reno police arrested at least 16 people on Peppermill facial recognition matches before September 2023 are borne out; neither was tested here.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. The complaint alleges that the Peppermill Casino's 'A.I. facial recognition software' identified Killinger as a barred man and that casino security and the responding officer relied on its reported 100 percent match; it quotes the officer on body-worn camera describing the casino's 'artificial intelligence software'. The court's March 2026 order recites the facial recognition identification from the complaint without a finding. The vendor and system are not named in any inspected source. The handcuffing, arrest and prosecution decisions were made by casino staff, the officer and prosecutors.

7 claims: 1 documented, 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported According to Jason Killinger's federal complaint, in the early hours of 17 September 2023 the Peppermill Casino in Reno reported to police that its AI facial-recognition software had identified him as a man barred from the casino months earlier; the complaint says the identification was wrong and that casino security handcuffed him and held him in its security office.

Causal attribution. The plaintiff's allegation, relayed by the court in its background recital and by news coverage of the filings. The casino's system is not named in any inspected source.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Complaint, introduction paras 1-3: 'reported that their A.I. facial recognition software positively identified the man as M.E., a man they'; 'The Peppermill’s A.I. software was wrong. It mistakenly identified Plaintiff Jason'; 'gaming at the casino, of being M.E. They handcuffed him, took him to their security office, and'; 'On September 17, 2023, the Peppermill Casino in Reno telephoned the Reno Police'; 'had barred from the casino months earlier for sleeping on the premises.'
  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Order, Relevant Background (recounting the complaint): 'security. (Id. at 7-8.) Peppermill’s facial recognition software (“FRS”) identified Plaintiff as'; 'Peppermill’s security handcuffed Plaintiff and placed him in a citizen’s arrest.'; 'In the early morning, Plaintiff was stopped by Peppermill'
  • casino.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'misidentified by the venue’s AI facial recognition technology as a local reprobate, according to court filings.'
  • aclu.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'Mr. Killinger was arrested because the casino’s facial recognition security camera system alerted to Mr. Killinger being a possible match for another individual who had been banned from the premises.'
Reported The complaint alleges that the responding Reno police officer was told the software had produced a 100 percent match, did not examine the other identification Killinger had on him and in his car, and arrested him and took him to the Washoe County jail to establish his identity, where a fingerprint check confirmed who he was.

Causal attribution. The plaintiff's allegation. The court's March 2026 order recites these facts from the complaint and makes no finding on them; the arrest decision was the officer's.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Complaint para 5 and para 12: 'recognition software had provided a 100 percent match confirming that KILLINGER was M.E.'; 'fingerprint analysis conclusively established that he was KILLINGER, not M.E. or anyone else.'
  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Order, Relevant Background: 'Plaintiff’s driver’s license and Peppermill’s FRS results confirming a 100% match with the'; 'Defendant did not review any additional documentation before handcuffing'; 'At WCDF, Plaintiff’s identity was positively confirmed.'; 'for biometric intake to confirm his identity.'
  • mynews4.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'According to court filings, police detained Killinger for identification after receiving the facial recognition alert. Fingerprints later confirmed he was not the person flagged by the system, and he was released.'
Reported The complaint states that Killinger was in police and jail custody for about eleven hours, not counting the time casino security held him, was handcuffed for about four hours and was treated at an urgent-care clinic the next day for bruising to both wrists.

Causal attribution. The plaintiff's allegation.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Complaint paras 65-73: 'KILLINGER was in handcuffs approximately four hours'; 'in custody at the jail for an additional nine and one-half hours for a total'; 'contusions (bruising) on both wrists.'; 'This does not include the time he was held by the Peppermill before Jager’s arrival.'
  • casino.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The truck driver was detained for 11 hours, according to a wrongful arrest lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Nevada.'; 'For four of those hours, he was handcuffed, resulting in bruises and shoulder pain, per the suit.'
Reported Killinger was charged with trespassing the day after his release; at the bench trial a Reno prosecutor dismissed the charge without prejudice, and the complaint says the arrest left him, a man with no previous arrests, with a criminal record.

Causal attribution. The plaintiff's allegation, recited by the court without a finding.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Order, Relevant Background (recounting the complaint): 'At the bench trial, a Reno prosecutor dismissed'; 'the charges against Plaintiff but without prejudice to re-charge Plaintiff within the year.'; 'The next day, Plaintiff'; 'was charged with trespassing.'
  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Complaint para 19: 'Even though the charge was eventually dismissed, he'; 'now has a criminal record.'; 'He had never been accused of a crime, arrested, or taken to jail.'
Reported Casino.org reports that Killinger had sued the Peppermill Casino and that the case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

Causal attribution. Casino.org's report; the settlement terms and any filing against the casino were not inspected.

  • casino.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'The plaintiff has already sued the Peppermill Casino in a case that was settled for an undisclosed amount.'
Documented In an order of 27 March 2026 the court allowed Killinger to add the City of Reno as a defendant with a municipal liability claim concerning policies on facial recognition software and handcuffing, and refused to let him add a wrongful arrest claim against the officer, holding it futile under qualified immunity because he had earlier conceded that no Ninth Circuit case clearly established that arrests based solely on facial recognition were unlawful and cited no case law in reply.

Causal attribution. Procedural rulings documented by the order; no finding on the merits.

  • storage.courtlistener.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Order, Conclusion and Part IV: 'liability claim and denied in part as to Plaintiff’s proposed wrongful arrest claim. Plaintiff'; 'incident and a new claim of municipal liability for policies regarding FRS and handcuffing.'; 'Plaintiff concedes there are no cases in the Ninth Circuit clearly'; 'Since Plaintiff previously conceded that no relevant precedent exists'; 'and fails to respond or rebut his own conclusion with any case law'
  • kolotv.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'In a new filing, a district court has granted his request to add the City of Reno as a new defendant in the case, as well as a new municipal liability claim against the city.'
Reported On 21 September 2026 the ACLU, the ACLU of Nevada and the Innocence Project filed a proposed amicus brief (ECF No. 96-1) supporting Killinger's motion for partial summary judgment, asking the court to rule that police lacked probable cause to arrest him on a facial recognition result and that the City of Reno is liable for failing to train its officers.

Causal attribution. The filing date and the proposed status of the brief come from its caption; the description of its requests is the ACLU's own. No ruling on the motion or on leave to file the brief was found.

  • assets.aclu.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    Caption page: '[Proposed] Amicus Curiae Brief of the'; 'Support of Plaintiff’s Motion for'; 'Filed 09/21/26'
  • aclu.org(opens in new tab) supports · English
    'On September 21, 2026, the ACLU, ACLU of Nevada and the Innocence Project filed an amicus brief in the District of Nevada in support of Jason Killinger'; 'The brief asks the court to rule that police lacked probable cause to arrest Mr. Killinger based on a facial recognition technology result'; 'The brief also asks the court to rule that the City of Reno is liable for Mr. Killinger’s wrongful arrest.'; 'failing to provide training to Reno Police Department officers amounts to deliberate indifference'

Sources

7 sources inspected, from 3 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Complaint, Killinger v. Jager, No. 3:25-cv-00388 (D. Nev.), filed 30 July 2025 (ECF No. 1, 31 pages), read in full from the free RECAP copy on 2026-10-04. It sets out the plaintiff's allegations, including quotations he attributes to the officer's body-worn camera; it is not a finding. Applies to s1.

Order of 27 March 2026 (ECF No. 58, 10 pages), read in full from the free RECAP copy on 2026-10-04. Its background section states that it relies on the facts alleged in the original complaint, so its factual recital is not an independent finding; its rulings are documented by the order itself. Applies to s2.

Casino.org, 11 November 2025, read live on 2026-10-04. The article attributes its account to the court filings; it is a derivative of the plaintiff's pleadings for the incident facts. Applies to s3.

KOLO (Reno), 8 April 2026, read live on 2026-10-04 (short item attributed to court documents). Applies to s4.

News 4 (Reno, mynews4.com), 14 May 2026, read live on 2026-10-04; attributes the incident account to court filings. Applies to s5.

Proposed amicus curiae brief of the ACLU, ACLU of Nevada and Innocence Project, ECF No. 96-1 (Exhibit 1), filed 21 September 2026, 39 pages, from the ACLU's copy; read for its caption and filing details. Its arguments are the amici's, not findings. Applies to s7.

ACLU case page (last updated 23 September 2026), read live on 2026-10-04. The ACLU is an amicus supporting the plaintiff; its summary of the arrest relays the litigation record. Applies to s6.

Event countries: United States. Affected-person countries: United States. Court countries: United States.

The arrest took place at the Peppermill Casino in Reno, Nevada; the complaint states the plaintiff resides in Washoe County, Nevada, and the suit is in the US District Court for the District of Nevada.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-04: Published as a contextual case: a casino's facial recognition system made a claim about a patron's identity that, according to his federal complaint, was wrong and led to his arrest, about eleven hours in custody and a dismissed trespass prosecution. The incident facts are the plaintiff's allegations, relayed by news coverage of the filings and recited without findings in a court order; the procedural rulings are documented. The plaintiff is named because he sues in his own name; the officer appears only by surname in the case caption, and the barred man, whom the complaint identifies only by initials, is not named.

People described

Jason Killinger, an adult UPS truck driver living in Washoe County, Nevada, with no previous arrests according to his complaint

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One person, the plaintiff, who was arrested and held according to his complaint. Reported allegations about other people arrested on casino facial recognition matches in Reno are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#facial-recognition#wrongful-arrest#casino#reno#nevada#justice#lawsuit

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Reno, Nevada: a casino's facial recognition system wrongly matched a patron to a barred man in September 2023, and police arrested him and held him for about eleven hours until fingerprints confirmed his identity and he was released, his federal lawsuit alleges. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2023-reno-peppermill-casino-facial-recognition-misidentification-arrest-killinger-lawsuit

BibTeX

@misc{2023_reno_peppermill_casino_facial_recognition_misidentification_arrest_killinger_lawsuit,
  title = {Reno, Nevada: a casino's facial recognition system wrongly matched a patron to a barred man in September 2023, and police arrested him and held him for about eleven hours until fingerprints confirmed his identity and he was released, his federal lawsuit alleges},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2023-reno-peppermill-casino-facial-recognition-misidentification-arrest-killinger-lawsuit}
}

Related cases

High Unidentified facial recognition system

Jacksonville, Florida: a 38-year-old father was arrested at work in May 2025 and charged with soliciting a child after sheriff's investigators identified him, he says with facial-recognition tools, from photos an impostor had sent to an undercover officer; charges were dropped in August 2025 after the real sender confessed, and the family says the ordeal cost $45,000

The Florida Trib (28 September 2026, republished by the Florida Phoenix) reports that in May 2025, during the multi-agency sting Operation Rescue Our Children, a man using the Skout dating app sent an undercover officer posing as a 13-year-old girl two photos of someone else: a former friend, a supermarket assistant manager and father of two whom the Trib calls 'Nick'. Investigators told him they relied on facial-recognition tools to identify him in the pictures, he recalled, and the Trib found no indication in court documents of other investigative work before his arrest. He was handcuffed at work, charged with soliciting a child via computer and unlawful use of a two-way communications device, spent a night in jail, wore an ankle monitor, was barred from contact with his two young children for a month and a half and could not live at home for nearly three months. The account's owner, a man with a prior conviction for the same offence, admitted on 31 July 2025 using the photos; charges against the father were dropped the next day and a judge ordered the case expunged on 4 August 2025, though the records stayed publicly online for more than a year. The family says the ordeal cost $45,000 in lost wages and legal fees and traumatised the children. The sheriff's office did not respond to the Trib's questions.

High Unidentified facial recognition system

Phoenix: facial recognition match put Javier Lorenzano Nunez in jail for nearly a year for a 1998 murder; charges dismissed, federal suit filed

Javier Lorenzano Nunez was arrested in October 2024 for the 1998 murder of Sarah Carr after investigators ran the old suspect's MVD photo through facial recognition databases, got 250 possible matches and zeroed in on him — with Phoenix police publicizing the arrest in a press release and a special video. Charges were dismissed without prejudice in August 2025 after forensic evidence, including DNA and fingerprints, excluded him. His lawsuit alleges Phoenix police knew from a 2017 fingerprint analysis that his prints did not match, and ignored a 2007 Puerto Rico lead on the original suspect with the same name, date of birth and social security number. He spent nearly a year in jail. The federal suit against the Phoenix Police Department and the Maricopa County Attorney's Office alleges gross negligence, false arrest, false imprisonment and defamation.

High Flock Safety license plate readers

Toledo, Ohio: police stopped a man's pickup at gunpoint in April 2024 after a Flock license-plate camera misread his plate as stolen, released a police dog that bit him, and charged him; prosecutors dropped the charges and he later settled a lawsuit for $35,000

On 11 April 2024 Toledo police officers stopped a pickup truck after a Flock license-plate camera alerted them to a stolen plate. According to the police report and body-camera footage reported by 13abc and ABC News, the camera had misread the plate, which was not stolen. Officers drew their guns, ordered the driver out and to the ground, and a K-9 handler released a police dog as he began to kneel. The driver told ABC News he was bitten seven times on his forearm and elbow, was traumatized and could not work; he was arrested and charged with obstruction, resisting arrest and, later, failure to comply. Prosecutors dropped all charges in August 2024. The department found the dog deployment within policy and reprimanded the officer who made the stop for failing to visually verify the plate against the reader's information. Business Insider reported in March 2026 that police records show the camera read a 7 on the plate as a 2, that the man lost feeling in his fingers, gave up his lawn-care business and forklift work, sold his truck and was evicted, and that he had sued the officer and the city and settled in October for $35,000.

High Unidentified facial recognition system

Maryland/Oklahoma: Kimberlee Williams, an Oklahoma woman who says she had never been to Maryland, was arrested in June 2021 and jailed about six months on bank-fraud charges in three Maryland counties after a facial-recognition search by an unknown CrimeDex respondent named her; all charges were dismissed by December 2021 and the ACLU filed complaints in April 2026

According to police and bank records reviewed by the Washington Post, in December 2019 a woman made fraudulent withdrawals at a SunTrust branch in Potomac, Maryland; branches in two other Maryland counties were also defrauded. A bank investigator posted the surveillance photos on CrimeDex, an online network of police and corporate investigators; an unknown respondent ran the image through facial-recognition software and returned Kimberlee Williams's name and photo, and the investigator told Montgomery County police that facial-recognition software had identified her. Police in Montgomery, Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties charged her in 2020 on the investigator's identification and their own visual comparison of photos (two departments also cited her old Oklahoma check-fraud convictions), without reported checks of her whereabouts; Montgomery County police did not disclose the facial-recognition search in the charging application, according to police records reviewed by the Washington Post and the ACLU. On 23 June 2021 she was arrested at the gate of Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma, while accompanying her daughter on a DoorDash delivery, spent about three weeks in an Oklahoma jail, was flown to Maryland, and faced 16 charges including 12 felonies. The counties dismissed the charges one after another, in October and December 2021, after about six months in jail. Her daughter says she was depressed afterwards; the ACLU says the ordeal harmed her mental and physical health. On 14 April 2026 the ACLU and ACLU of Maryland sent complaint letters to the three departments seeking an apology and reforms.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents