Making Elizabeth Holmes’ cringey texts public is the ultimate crime deterrent

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The Elizabeth Holmes trial has made me more determined than ever to avoid doing crimes. I’ll be sticking to the law from here on out, thank you very much. It’s not for any noble reason — I don’t have any new sense of morality or sudden desire to be a very good person. No, I am zealously sticking to the law because doing crimes could, theoretically, put me in the same position disgraced Theranos founder Holmes is in right now: having my text message history revealed in court.

Dozens of text messages between Holmes and her ex-boyfriend (and ex-business partner) Sunny Balwani were read aloud during Holmes’ trial for fraud this week. Thousands were released by the prosecution and more were obtained by CNBC. Some of the messages talked about problems with the blood testing technology, which might help prosecutors show that Holmes knew that they didn’t work as advertised. Others were much more... personal. Like when Holmes texted Balwani “you are the breeze in desert for me.” Now, along with the “might go to jail” thing, Holmes has to live with the knowledge that everyone knows she sent that text.

I would plead guilty to crimes I didn’t even commit before I let this get read aloud in court jfc

— Maladroithe (@Maladroithe) September 22, 2021

I am not sure if I’m being hyperbolic when I say that is my very worst nightmare. I can confidently say that I’ve never told someone that they’re the breeze in the desert, but my text history is still embarrassing as hell. Isn’t everyone’s? Mine is full of bad tweets and shit talking and screenshots that should never, ever see the light of day. Searching for the word “murder” in iMessage brings up dozens of results, most of which are in conversations about online dating. Here are some moderately-cringe-but-not-too-terrible messages I’ve sent recently:

Is this embarrassing?

Okay, I stand by this.

And I got to carefully curate these! I got to comb through and pick only a few messages that I thought would help communicate that I am someone who sends somewhat embarrassing texts but am not TOO weird. Holmes just had everything dumped on the internet, for anyone to see. I asked a friend what she would do if that happened to her. “Hang myself I assume,” she responded, in another dubious (and to be clear, exaggerated) entry into both of our iMessage histories.

If very high-profile public trials like this one can be a deterrent against other people committing crimes like the ones Holmes is accused of, this one is working. I can confidently say I will not develop an inaccurate medical testing device and defraud investors. I am going to be very, very good.