If I am a scammer I must be the dumbest scammer in the history of Bitcoin because exposed or not exposed I am the only one who lost money- either way.
Look. You already admitted that you made several mistakes and stupid decisions for example not keeping proper books on what is going on and changing colour coding midstream to be something else than advertized. Mistakes cost money. It is totally unreasonable to expect to be able to make this many mistakes and stupid decisions without it costing you money. Do not make mistakes or stupid decisions is the lesson here.
That being said whether it was a mistake or a scam cannot be argued on how dumb it would be. I would think it would be dumber to make this many mistakes and stupid decisions compared to being a failed scammer that got cought. At least being a scammer there would be some quarter-sensible motive trying to do things like this rather than just being plain dumb.