Hope Solo pleads guilty to driving while impaired charge

Hope Solo will not serve any jail time after pleading guilty to driving while impaired after she was arrested on March 31.

Last spring the former Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women’s World Cup winner was found passed out behind the wheel of her car in a North Carolina parking lot. Her twin children, age 2, were in the car as well, with the engine running. She was charged with impaired driving, resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse.

Forsyth District Judge Victoria Roemer issued Solo a suspended sentence of 24 months and an active sentence of 30 days, with 30 days credit given for time spent in an inpatient rehabilitation facility.

The charges of resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse were dismissed, according to her attorney Chris Clifton.

“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,” she posted on social media.

“While I’m proud of us, it was incredibly hard and I made a huge mistake. Easily the worst mistake of my life. I understand what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become. The upside of making a mistake this big is that the hard lessons are learned quickly, and at times, very painfully.”

This was not Solo’s first run-in with the law.

In 2014 she was arrested and charged with two misdemeanor counts of assault in the fourth degree, one against her half-sister and the other against her nephew. Those charges were dismissed in 2015, reinstated later that year, and eventually dismissed again on May 24, 2018.

In January 2015 her husband Jerramy Stevens was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence while driving a U.S. Soccer team van. Solo was also in the van and was suspended by U.S. Soccer for showing poor judgement and arguing with police. Stevens was sentenced to 30 days in jail and four years’ probation.

Solo, 40, said she continues to be a work in progress and “I will continue to learn and grow from these experiences.”