[5] He worked in several different fields including as a real estate appraiser, a real estate broker, the president of construction and developing firms, an insurance underwriter, and an author.
In the 1970s, Banks also led legislation to merge Harris-Stowe, a financially struggling historically black St. Louis College, into the state higher education system.
Banks sometimes changed suits several times a day as a way to be flamboyant.
Banks resigned in December 1999 due to ill health, and three months after he pleaded guilty to filing false state income tax returns, a felony for which he was convicted and received five years probation, 300 hours of court-ordered community service, and a prohibition from holding any elected or appointed office while on probation.
In 2003, he died at a Las Vegas hospital's emergency room of natural causes at the age of 79.