Hope Solo arrested on child abuse and DWI charges
Ex-US women's national team goalkeeper Hope Solo has been arrested on DWI and child abuse charges after being discovered passed out behind the wheel of her vehicle with her two-year-old twins inside, according to police.
A police report says that Solo was arrested on Thursday in the parking lot of a shopping center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and charged with driving while impaired, misdemeanor child abuse, and resisting a public officer.
The retired 40-year-old has already been released from jail but must return to court on June 28, the report obtained by ESPN explained.
According to Solo's arrest warrant, a passerby noticed her passed out behind the steering wheel of her vehicle for over an hour with the vehicle's engine left running and her two children – Vittorio Genghis and Lozen Orianna Judith Stevens – sitting in the back.
A responding officer insists he could smell alcohol, and the warrant detailed how Solo refused to take a field sobriety test which meant her blood had to be drawn instead.
Hope Solo was arrested on suspicion of DWI, resisting arrest and misdemeanor child abuse in North Carolina on Thursday, reports @TMZ_Sportspic.twitter.com/s6CH4Huz4H
— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 1, 2022
Rich Nichols, who is Solo's attorney, released a statement on Friday but declined the chance to speak on the specific charges.
"On the advice of counsel, Hope can't speak about this situation, but she wants everyone to know that her kids are her life, that she was released immediately and is now at home with her family, that the story is more sympathetic than the initial charges suggest, and that she looks forward to her opportunity to defend these charges," said Nichols.
Solo has a chequered past and was memorably dismissed from the US national team after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro for calling her Swedish rivals "cowards" when the Scandinavians set up defensively against her reigning gold medalist side.
Solo was suspended for 30 days before that in early 2015 when her and husband Jerramy Stevens, a former NFL tight end for the Seattle Seahawks, were pulled over in a van owned by U.S. Soccer as Stevens was hit with a DUI charge.
The Washington state native was also ordered to sit on the bench after she publicly questioned then-coach Greg Ryan's decision to start positional rival Briana Scurry against Brazil at the 2007 World Cup.
Seven years later, in 2014, Solo was arrested after an altercation with members of her family although charges stemming from the fracas were eventually dropped.
Solo retired at the Seattle Reign in 2016 after having made 202 appearances with the all-conquering USWNT.
Her 102 clean sheets across 153 victories is still a record, and she helped her country become world champions for the third time in 2015 after letting in just three goals in seven matches while leaving the opposition scoreless on five occasions.
Also a two-time Olympic gold medalist, Solo was elected to the US Soccer Hall of Fame at the turn of 2021 with her induction scheduled for next month.
In late Februrary, she also blasted former teammates for accepting a "heartbreaking and infuriating" $24 million pay settlement linked to a class action equal pay lawsuit.
