Last October, William Banks posted on Instagram that he was looking for a subletter: $1,025 a month for eight months in a prewar building in Crown Heights with three roommates. It’s the kind of message that many New Yorkers put out, hoping to cover their rent during an arts residency or a luxurious season of travel.
His trip would not be so glamorous. “I’m leaving New York for a little while because unfortunately I have to go to jail in Connecticut,” Banks told everyone.
Banks had been arrested at the end of 2023 in Westport — a wealthy town halfway to New Haven from Brooklyn — for stealing five Israeli lawn flags, which residents had planted to show support for Israel after the October 7 attacks. He was in Connecticut visiting his fiancée’s parents for the holidays, and he felt compelled to do something after watching the ensuing attacks on Gaza. “I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I got in my head that I should throw these signs away,” Banks said. “I thought that Israel was being very bad and that no one else is going to do it except for me.”
