4) I created the white and blue papers of the projects with Michael Malley being my proof-reader and Sam Cheng Hung being the webmaster. Those were the only contacts I had within Mass, besides Alexander Pankov (a lot) and Alexander Kuzmin, occasionally, on general topics. By that time, I assumed that Alexander Pankov has hired all the dev team members by himself.
Who could be more involved than the person that wrote the whitepaper which is the whole basis for the project? Surely the white paper would be written by someone intimately familiar with the end result and the strategy used to get there. By your own admission, you have been compensated for the work and have not been affected by the collapse of the project, other than becoming one of the fall guys. If it is true the project was based in Russia, it is unlikely anyone will see their "investment" again.