Hope Solo, who led the U.S. women’s soccer team to two Olympic gold medals and victory at the Women’s World Cup in July, suffered defeat in court on Friday involving a domestic dispute dating back to June 2014.
Considered to be the greatest women’s goalie in the world today, Solo faces a domestic violence charge after a Washington state appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision to dismiss her case in which her nephew and half-sister charge that she beat them up.
ESPN reported that the 31-year-old Washington state native initially told police that she was the victim. After interviewing Solo’s half-sister Teresa Obert and her seventeen-year-old son back in June, police charged the goalkeeper with two counts of domestic violence.
“She grabbed him by the head and she kept slamming him into the cement over and over again,” Obert revealed in the investigative program Outside the Lines airing on ESPN. “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.”
The report also claims that Solo accused the two jailers who detained her of having sex. She insulted another officer calling him a “14-year-old boy,” when he tried to remove a necklace that she wore at the time of her arrest. Allegedly, Solo told the officer the necklace was worth more than he made all year.
The soccer superstar continues to maintain her innocence. She told Good Morning America host Robin Roberts that she would be exonerated and that she is a victim not a criminal.
The initial charges against Solo were dropped by the lower court for procedural reasons prior to yesterday’s decision.
Nevertheless, despite pleading innocence, Solo regrets the incident. She lamented, “From here on out, no matter what happens, I’ll forever be associated with domestic violence.”