Former US women's goalie Solo convicted of driving impaired: reports

Washington (AFP) – Former US women’s goalkeeper Hope Solo has pleaded guilty to driving while impaired, according to media reports, and says she is “slowly coming back” after undergoing alcohol treatment.

The 40-year-old, who received a two-year suspended sentence, helped the US soccer squads win 2008 and 2012 Olympic gold medals and the 2015 Women’s World Cup title.

She was arrested in March after police found her passed out behind the wheel of a car in a shopping center parking lot in North Carolina, with her two-year-old twins in the vehicle.

Tests showed she had a blood alcohol concentration of three times the legal limit and THC in her system.

On Monday, the soccer star was handed a suspended jail sentence of two years by the Forsyth County District Attorney’s Office, the Winston-Salem Journal said.

She also received an active sentence of 30 days, offset by 30 days’ credit for time spent in in-patient alcohol treatment this year, according to the newspaper’s report.

Charges of misdemeanor and child abuse, and resisting a public officer, were dismissed, according to the newspaper.

“I underestimated what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become,” Solo posted on social media on Monday evening.

“I made a huge mistake. Easily the worst mistake of my life,” she wrote on Instagram. 

“It’s been a long road, but I am slowly coming back from taking time off,” she wrote, thanking her friends, family, attorneys, and staff at the treatment facility — though without directly mentioning the conviction.

Solo, who is married to former NFL player Jerramy Stevens, has had brushes with the law before.

In 2014 she was arrested at her home in Washington state for allegedly assaulting her half-sister and 17-year-old nephew at a family gathering.

Solo said at the time that she acted in self-defense and the case was later dismissed.