1. The other team members left, Bill was left holding the bag, trying to explain a bad project.
2. Christine helped Tim invent a scheme to cheat people out of their money and it went wrong. She left town and Tim got caught holding the bag.

Compare to: leave (someone) in the lurch. Leave someone in the lurch is usually applied more generally to any number of situations involving responsibility whereas leave someone holding the bag is usually applied to a situation involving theft in which one person is literally left holding (or caught with) the stolen goods.