Former US women’s soccer player, Hope Solo, pled guilty to driving while impaired on Monday. The New York Times reported that she was charged with driving while impaired, resisting a public officer, and misdemeanor child abuse, but the latter two charges were dropped. The goalkeeper’s 24-month sentence was suspended in favor of a 30-day stint in an inpatient rehabilitation center. Solo was found by officers asleep behind the wheel of her car in a Walmart parking lot on March 31 with her 2-year-old twins in the back seat.
Solo released a statement on her social media which read in part, “It’s been a long road, but I’m slowly coming back from taking time off. I pride myself in motherhood and what my husband and I have done day in and day out for over two years throughout the pandemic with two-year old twins. While I’m proud of us, it was incredibly hard and I made a huge mistake. Easily the worst mistake of my life. I underestimated what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become. The upside of making a mistake this big is that hard lessons are learned quickly. Learning these lessons has been difficult, and at times, very painful.”
Solo and her husband, former NFL tight end Jeremy Stephens, have had a turbulent history with law enforcement. The day before they were scheduled to get married, an altercation between the two led to Stevens being arrested for fourth-degree domestic violence assault; he later avoided charges by way of lack of evidence. Solo was arrested in 2014 for domestic violence against her sister and nephew during a party in Seattle; a judge dismissed charges, based on a lack of cooperation from the alleged victims. In 2015, Solo was suspended from the US Women’s team when she was with Stephens when he was arrested for a DUI while driving a U.S. Soccer team van. The Olympic gold medalist and former Dancing With The Stars contestant announced in April on Instagram that she would be requesting her induction into the National Soccer Hall of Fame be postponed until next year.
