Fake preacher, former candidate for mayor, and colorful character Reverend Billy, was arrested yesterday for leaving a pile of dirt (which we once thought was poo) as a protest in the vestibule of a Chase Bank in the East Village.

The dirt is from Coal River Mountain in West Virginia and Rev. Billy (or Billy Talen), founder of anti-corporate Church of Life After Shopping, left mounds of it in protest of Chase supposedly financing coal mining concerns in the Appalachian Mountains. He brought a choir with him yesterday to sing "Chase, Bring Us Back the Mountains" and to put hexes on two Chase branches, one on St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue and the other on Astor Place. At both locations he left the mounds of dirt. When the cops showed up at Astor Place (where these photos were taken by a Gawker operative) and asked to remove the dirt, he refused and was arrested, but was released shortly after he got to the police station. We wish Billy the best of luck on his crusade, but we think this whole thing would be a whole lot more interesting if he was using manure rather than mountain mud.