U.S. Soccer Star Hope Solo Convicted of DWI After Being Found Slumped at Wheel
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U.S. soccer star Hope Solo was convicted of driving while impaired on Monday four months after she was found passed out at the wheel of a car in a North Carolina Walmart. The former goalkeeper of the USWNT pleaded guilty to the offense and was given 30 days in prison—which she won’t have to serve because she has spent a month in rehab—and a further 23 months suspended. She was also fined $2,500 and ordered to pay $600 lab costs. The 40-year-old, who won Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012 and the World Cup in 2015, was arrested on March 31 after a member of the public noticed her passed out for over an hour in the driver’s seat of a car with the engine running. Her 2-year-old twins were in the backseat of the vehicle at the time. The passerby called police and the responding officer could smell alcohol on her. She refused a breathalyzer test but a warrant-issued blood test found she was three times over the legal limit. “I underestimated what a destructive part of my life alcohol had become,” Ms. Solo wrote in a statement on Instagram. “I made a huge mistake. Easily the worst mistake of my life.”