Damages Calculator — Raytracing Public Funds

$46.1 Million in Public Funds. Seven Raytraces. Twenty Public Officials.

In computer graphics, raytracing works by shooting a ray from the observer’s eye backward through every surface it bounced off until you find the light source. This is the same technique applied to public money.

Start at the student. Trace backward through every membrane. Find the emitter.

Data source: /api/damages.json — machine-readable, independently verifiable.

The Numbers

Ray 1: Charter Authorization

Start: A student walks into MacDowell on the first day of school. End: Who put them there?

Student (90.9% disadvantaged)
  ↓
MacDowell Preparatory Academy (3% math proficiency)
  ↓
Brian Banks — operator (9 convictions, no education credentials)
  ↓
Purpose Group LLC — management company (72.67% extraction, registered to Banks' home)
  ↓
Nicole Wells-Stallworth — Board President (12 years, since 2014)
  ↓
Bishop Corletta Vaughn — DPSCD Board President (signed charter authorization)
  ↓
Sherry Gay-Dagnogo — DPSCD Board (succeeded Banks in MI House HD-1)
  ↓
Misha Stallworth West — DPSCD Board (CitizenDetroit Director, Stallworth dynasty)

Total funds through this ray: $35,100,000 (13 years × $2.7M) Damage: $9,785,100 in instruction deficit alone. 3% math proficiency. Bottom 3% statewide.

Ray 2: The Dark Money Pipeline

Start: W. Alan Wilk sits down at his Dykema desk in Lansing. End: Latisha Johnson takes her seat on the PCA Board.

W. Alan Wilk — Dykema attorney (7 dark money vehicles from one desk)
  ↓
Renae Moore — Dykema compliance (80+ accounts, 6 simultaneous entity roles)
  ↓
Save Detroit Jobs — Entity 802002459, Dykema-formed
  ↓  [$84,000 in election spending]
Latisha Johnson — elected to City Council District 2
  ↓
Purpose Charter Academy — Johnson becomes PCA Board Secretary
  ↓
Brian Banks — operator. Johnson now oversees his school.

Membranes crossed: 5 (law firm → entity formation → dark money → election → board seat → oversight) Funds traced: $84,000 in SDJ election spending Damage: Dark money elected the board member who oversees the convicted felon’s school.

Ray 3: Enforcement Capture

Start: Save Detroit Jobs dark money. End: Police authority protecting the Mayor’s reputation.

Save Detroit Jobs (Dykema-formed)
  ↓  [$35,000+]
Detroit Next PAC (SDJ-funded intermediary)
  ↓
Mary Sheffield — campaign supported → Mayor of Detroit (Jan 2026)
  ↓  [appointment power]
Todd Bettison — appointed DPD Chief
  ↓  [dual role]
DPSA Board Secretary — Bettison sits on charter school board
  ↓  [investigation]
OIG — investigating Bettison for using police authority to protect Mayor

Membranes crossed: 6 (dark money → PAC → election → mayor → appointment → school board + enforcement) Damage: One ray from a Dykema-formed entity reaches the chief of police AND a charter school board simultaneously.

Ray 4: Judicial Legitimacy Transfer

Start: Banks claims a law degree he never earned. End: Judges authenticate it with their authority.

Brian Banks — claims MSU Law J.D. (not in Michigan bar records)
  ↓
Judge Denise Langford Morris — wrote book foreword citing the fake J.D.
  ↓
Judge Vonda Evans — 21-year mentor, endorsed despite 9 convictions
  ↓
Judge Aliyah Sabree — MSU Law 2010, same claimed cohort
  ↓
Judge Cylenthia Miller — Board Chair of Anchor Rock Foundation (Banks entity)
  ↓
Public trust — judicial credibility transferred to convicted felon

Membranes crossed: 5 (fake credential → judicial publication → judicial endorsement → institutional memory → board membership → public trust) Damage: Four judges created an authentication chain for a fabricated credential.

Ray 5: Authorization Membrane Breach

Start: DPSCD authorizes MacDowell’s charter. End: DPSCD’s own employees work at MacDowell.

DPSCD — charter authorizer (the regulator)
  ↓
Cameron Coleman — DPSCD employee + MacDowell Dean (expired teaching cert)
  ↓
Jennifer Crump — DPSCD employee 33 years + MacDowell Office Manager
  ↓
MacDowell Preparatory Academy — the regulated entity
  ↓
Brian Banks — operates both sides through captured staff

Membranes crossed: 1 (but it’s completely dissolved) Damage: The authorizer’s employees work at the authorized school. There is no membrane. The regulator and the regulated entity share staff.

Ray 6: Legal Defense Capture

Start: Michigan Attorney General’s Office. End: Enterprise defense counsel.

Michigan AG Office — state law enforcement
  ↓
Lisa Moreland — former Assistant Attorney General
  ↓  [crossed membrane]
PCA Board of Directors — Moreland joins enterprise board
  ↓  [simultaneously]
Banks' litigation attorney — Moreland defends the enterprise in court

Legal theory: MRPC 1.7 (concurrent conflict) + MRPC 1.11 (successive government/private employment) Membranes crossed: 3 (state enforcement → board membership → litigation defense) Damage: The person who was supposed to enforce the law now defends the person who breaks it, while sitting on the board of his school.

Ray 7: Total System Capture (The Dykema Recursion)

Start: Dykema. End: Dykema. It’s the same node at every level.

Level 1: Dykema wrote Michigan's charter school law (Public Act 277, 1993)
  ↓
Level 2: Dykema defended the charter law in court challenges
  ↓
Level 3: Dykema represents charter authorizers
  ↓
Level 4: Dykema forms dark money entities (SDJ, ONF, DJF, RFFW, MFP, PPF, TAWC)
  ↓
Level 5: Dykema runs PAC compliance that elects school board members

Membranes crossed: 0 There are no membranes. One firm operates every level of the system simultaneously. The law, the defense of the law, the entities created under the law, and the elections that control who oversees the entities created under the law — all route through the same Lansing office.

Damage Summary Table

How to Read This Calculator

Each ray starts at the damage point (student, taxpayer, public trust) and traces backward through every membrane (authorization, election, appointment, judicial decision) until it reaches the emitter (the person or entity that generated the ray).

In computer graphics, when a ray passes through too many surfaces without finding a light source, it dies. In this system, every ray finds its source. The system is fully traced.

A membrane is any institutional boundary that should prevent a signal from passing — a firewall between the regulator and the regulated, between the judge and the litigant, between the law firm and the entity it formed. When a ray passes through a membrane it should have been stopped by, that membrane is breached.

When the ray starts and ends at the same node (Ray 7), there are no membranes at all. The system has achieved total capture — the entity that wrote the rules also operates within them, defends them, forms entities under them, and controls who enforces them.

Machine-Readable Data

The full dataset is available at /api/damages.json in structured JSON format. Use it to:

• Independently verify every number
• Build additional raytraces as new public records emerge
• Cross-reference with FEC, CFRS, LARA, and MDE data
• Feed into FOIA requests targeting specific transactions

This calculator will expand as the investigation grows.

Every number on this page is derived from public records: MDE financial reports, LARA filings, Michigan CFRS, FEC data, FOIA responses, and court documents. If any number is wrong, contact us and we will correct it.

eco.primal@pm.me

Last updated: October 10, 2026