Investigating the violent incident in 2014 that prompted the arrest of U.S. Women’s Soccer Team goalie Hope Solo, 33, ESPN’s Outside the Lines procured police records and secured an interview with one of Solo’s alleged victims to offer a starkly different picture of the events than the story Solo has promulgated on her Facebook page, a February appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America, and an espnW article in the past week.
The report comes at an inopportune time. The U.S., with Solo minding the net, plays Australia today in the Women’s World Cup in Canada.
Solo, 5’9” and 150, has argued that she was victimized by her half-sister, Teresa Obert, 43, and Obert’s then-17-year-old, 6’8,” 270-pound son, telling ESPN that she never assaulted anyone, moaning, “From here on out, no matter what happens, I’ll forever be associated with domestic violence,” crying as she added that she felt less stupid for what transpired than for trusting her sister and nephew. She concluded, “It was hell…. I should have known.'” Solo told Good Morning America, “I was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of my 17-year-old nephew, who is 6-foot-9, 280 pounds. I was struck over the head, and concussed pretty severely. It was a very scary night.”
Obert, furious that Solo told a story that Obert claims falsifies events, told ESPN, “I felt like I had just been kicked in the head. She should have been happy, but then, randomly, she goes on Good Morning America and lies. I was very upset. It never had anything to do with size. She has tried to make him feel small his whole life. He’s not aggressive. She’s a trained athlete. She’s strong.”
Despite Solo’s claims, police records quote Obert saying in her deposition that she and her son returned home on June 20, 2014, to find Solo parked outside, upset because of an argument with her husband, former NFL player Jerramy Stevens. Obert said Solo was drunk, although she was scheduled for a red-eye flight to the East Coast for a game with her team. The two women drank wine. Obert said her two glasses left her “buzzed” but still alert. Her son said in his deposition that Solo “drank a lot.”
Exchanging insults that escalated during the night, the nephew and Solo eventually reached the point where she told him he was “fat, unathletic and crazy,” and he told her to “get her c— face out of the house.” Obert told Solo to leave.
But Solo trailed her nephew into the garage; he yelled for his mother, which led Solo to call him a “pussy” and a “mama’s boy,” according to his deposition. He said he responded, “You’ll never know what it’s like to be a mother, because even if you did have children, they would have the most unhappy childhoods because you have no compassion.”
Obert’s son said the last remark prompted Solo to hit him in the face and strike him over and over. Obert said her son pushed Solo to the ground, but after Obert convinced him to let Solo rise, Solo “immediately grabbed his hair, pulled his head down and started punching him in the face repeatedly.” The boy said Solo “jumped on top of me and started bashing my head into the cement,” echoed by Obert, who said, “She grabbed him by the head and she kept slamming him into the cement over and over again. So I came from behind her, and I pulled her over and, you know, to get her off my son. And then, once she got off, she started punching me in the face over and over again.”
After calling 911, Obert’s son said, he took a broken BB gun to threaten Solo to leave; Solo told espnW it was a working handgun. He admitted later striking Solo over the head with a wooden broomstick.
When police arrived, they recognized Solo was drunk. Obert’s son’s nose and left jawbone were red and he sported a “bleeding cut on the bottom of his left ear, just above the earlobe” along with a ripped T-shirt and arms that appeared “bright red and had scratch marks.” Obert “had bruising on the left side of her face,” and “a large scratch mark on the right side of her neck.” Officer Chuck Pierce reported that Obert’s appearance showed “disarray” and it “appeared she could not stand.”
After Solo was arrested and booked on two counts of domestic violence, she had to be forced to the ground, screaming at an officer, “You’re such a b—-. You’re scared of me because you know that if the handcuffs were off, I’d kick your ass” and asserting that two jailers were having sex and slamming another cop as a “14-year-old boy.” When police told her to remove a necklace, she haughtily said that it was worth more than his yearly salary.
Although the original case against Solo was dismissed on procedural grounds, prosecutors have filed an appeal. Oral arguments will begin September 11.