Former U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper Hope Solo received a 24-month suspended sentence Monday in Winston-Salem, NC, after pleading guilty to charges of driving while impaired.
The case stems from a March incident in which Solo was arrested in Winston-Salem when she was reportedly found passed out in the driver’s seat of her car with the engine running and her 2-year-old twins in the back seat.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, charges of child abuse and resisting a public officer were dropped.
The suspended sentence credits Solo with 30 days of time served for her stay while she underwent rehab for alcohol abuse in April. Solo was fined $2,500 and ordered to pay $600 in laboratory fees.
Solo wrote Monday on Twitter, “It’s been a long road, but I’m slowly coming back from taking time off. I’m proud to be a mother and what my husband and I have done day in and day out for over two years the whole pandemic with two-year-old twins.
“Although I’m proud of us, it was incredibly difficult 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 such a huge mistake is that hard lessons are learned quickly. Learning those lessons has been hard, and sometimes very painful.”
Solo, 40, made 202 appearances for the U.S. women’s national team from 2000-2016, helping the team win the Women’s World Cup in 2015 and Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012. In a career that was as decorated on the field as it was. Controversial off the field, Solo was kicked out of the national team for good after criticizing the Swedish team for its tactics while beating the US team in the 2016 Olympics.
–Field Level Media