Paradise Cove and another of Brian Viafanua's operations, Midwest Academy, were included in this class action lawsuit: http://wwaspsurvivors.com/turley-lawsuit-wwasp/

https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/qagqa/wwasp_entities_named_in_the_turley_lawsuit/

Apparently Viafanua was later hired as a school basketball coach in Utah. (More proof background checks are useless.) Here's a letter to the school district from a person who says he and others were physically and sexually abused at Paradise Cove in Samoa: https://pastebin.com/HyZsRTGi

March 31, 2012

Dr. Max Rose Washington County School District Superintendent

121 West Tabernacle St. St. George, Utah, 84770

Dear Mr. Rose:

It has recently come to my attention that your district has hired one Mr. Ruland Brian Vaifanua in the capacity of Hurricane High School Basketball Coach.

I first met Mr. Vaifanua when he served as Director of Paradise Cove - an all boys "wilderness therapy facility" located in the small island nation of Western Samoa. The facility was shut down in 1998 after a US State Department investigation determined "credible allegations" of abuse including "beatings, isolation, food and water deprivation, choke-holds, kicking, punching, bondage, spraying with chemical agents, forced medication, verbal abuse and threats of further physical abuse" [1]. For the 14 months I spent as a ward under Vaifanua's care starting in 1996 I directly bore witness to and suffered from said abuses. I cannot more strongly attest to the truth of these charges. I am writing to make you aware of the background of Mr. Vaifanua and to implore you to reevaluate his suitability for a role which provides him access to minors.

For the sake of brevity, I will summarize the Paradise Cove program Mr. Vaifanua ran as a hostile authoritarian environment in which neglect and malnourishment of minors was normalized. Physical and sexual abuse of children percolated down from the highest levels. Vaifanua instituted and strictly enforced policies that would be better described as grooming - for example mandating that children and staff watch other children while using the restroom.

In addition to the US State Department investigation, various sources of media such as the show 48 Hours[2] documented the misconduct starting in 1998 and collaborate my recollection of events, as does testimony from the multiple lawsuits which name Mr. Vaifanua as a defendant.

Only a few hundred children were entrusted to Mr. Vaifanua's care at Paradise Cove, and little more than a decade has passed since it was closed. In that time no less than seven of my peers have committed suicide; there have also been a handful of deaths from overdose, and two students who went on to be murderers.

I ask you Dr. Rose, is a man who would be in jail for abuse of children, neglect, and pedophilia had his crimes occurred in the United States an appropriate influence on St. Georges youth? Is this type of person you would invite into your school system and allow around children in an unsupervised capacity? Is this the type of man whom you would entrust with your own children? I cannot more strongly implore you to look into Mr. Vaifanua's past and reevaluate his suitability for any position which involves interaction with minors.

Regretfully, Nalin Singapuri

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20030103020835/http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/desperate/site-desperate/0702desp4.shtml:

"The abuse alleged to have occurred includes beatings, isolation, food and water deprivation, choke-holds, kicking, punching, bondage, spraying with chemical agents, forced medication, verbal abuse and threats of further physical abuse," according to a September 1998 State Department cable sent from Washington to the U.S. Embassy in Apia, Western Samoa.

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-20119.html http://archive.is/XAxLC

Viafanua was finally fired from the Utah school: https://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens/comments/1rk4sd/success_wwasp_survivor_got_the_man_who_tortured/