By John Schwing

WESTPORT — A New York man, charged with stealing pro-Israel lawn signs in late 2023, has parlayed that infamous act into internet fame — and fakery.

William Banks, of Brooklyn, was 27 when he turned himself in to police Feb. 27, 2024, to face a charge of sixth-degree larceny for stealing five signs with Israeli flags from lawns on Colony Road and area streets.

Banks, described variously as a comedian, journalist and activist for online platforms, in a “Free William Banks” website he created claims to have been sentenced to serve eight months in prison for the offense. He said he reported to an unspecified state prison last Nov. 15.

Sales of tee-shirts, emblazoned with the mug shot taken of Banks when he was booked by Westport police, are sold via the website with proceeds purportedly donated to “aid in Gaza.” There is also a page devoted to “Free Palestine.”

At some point during imprisonment Banks says he gained access to a cellphone — considered contraband, according to a state Department of Corrections spokesman — and began posting photos and videos about his prison life to social media.

It’s a weirdly eclectic chronicle that includes:

Playing cards on Valentine’s Day; doing “12” pushups; ramblings about religion and atheism; a fight with a fellow inmate; self-laudatory photos labeled “I am a teacher” and “William Banks stuns in new photo from jail,” and even a short video showing him tossing, and dropping, a football with another inmate, captioned, “The Chiefs tried to recruit me after this video but i could not help them because i am in jail.”

Those mundane “prison life” photos and videos got limited attention until last week, when Banks posted a “live” video that hit viral heights — “Escape” — allegedly showing him and fellow inmates breaking out of that unnamed Connecticut prison. It grabbed millions of views, and multiple re-posts, across social-media sites.

In its wake, Banks’s soaring internet notoriety has prompted web searchers to seek out the origins of his criminal odyssey, with hundreds more reading the year-old Westport Journal article on his arrest over the last week.

But, as with so much online content, the prison-escape video and Banks’s accounts of life behind bars are a hoax.

A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections said there is no record of Banks ever being imprisoned in Connecticut, and most definitely, there has been no mass “prison break” as portrayed in his video last week.

Plus, state Superior Court online records do not support Banks’s claim of being imprisoned for the low-level crime of sixth-degree larceny.

The blurry escape video depicts Banks and fellow inmates squeezing beneath the “prison” security wire fencing and racing away. 

However, as the DOC spokesman pointed out, the “escapees” are wearing only their prison-issued “blues” and tee-shirts and the ground is a verdant green — in a week when snow-blanketed Connecticut was in the grips of sub-freezing weather.

In that video, as well as his earlier posts, nary a prison guard is in evidence.

Although some of Banks’s posts appear to be photographed in a prison-like setting, the DOC spokesman said that correctional facilities in this state and elsewhere are occasionally leased for movie and video productions.

As for Banks, since his “prison escape,” he posted an “I am safe” video, clean shaven to try to conceal his identity and calling himself “white Moses.” 

He says he has taken refuge in an undisclosed gas station’s convenience room because “a lot of people have been trying to be mean to me,” but wants to find a girlfriend since he has “been wanting to have a wife for a while.”

John Schwing, interim editor of the Westport Journal, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.