Ex-NFL player, husband of Hope Solo, pleads to California drunken driving charges

[April 24, 2015]  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former National Football League player Jerramy Stevens, the husband of U.S. women's soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo, pleaded no contest on Thursday to drunken driving charges stemming from his arrest near Los Angeles, prosecutors said.

Stevens, 35, entered an open plea to one count each of driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a .08 percent blood alcohol content, both within 10 years of another DUI, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said in a statement.

An open plea is one where no settlement agreement has been reached with prosecutors, and is like a no contest plea, according to the statement from prosecutors.

Stevens also admitted in court that he refused a chemical test and that his blood alcohol concentration was at least .15 percent, prosecutors said.

Stevens, a resident of the Seattle-area city of Kirkland, was arrested near Los Angeles on Jan. 19 after he was pulled over by a Manhattan Beach police officer who saw him driving without headlights.

Solo, who played on U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning teams in 2008 and 2012, was also in the vehicle, which was a U.S. soccer team van.

She was suspended for 30 days by U.S. Soccer following her husband's arrest, which happened during a soccer training camp.

In February, Solo said on ABC program "Good Morning America" that she had made a "horrible choice" by being in the van.

Stevens, who played with the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during nine seasons in the NFL before his retirement in 2010, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15 at a court in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, prosecutors said.

He faces a possible maximum sentence of one year in county jail.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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