The "St. Patrick's Day Parade" was not the first visit by state officials to Abbeville County and would not be the last. Opened in the fall of 1998, Carolina Springs was pressed into service to accept a large number of children from Morava Academy in Brno, Czech Republic when Czech State Police arrested two Americans and two Czech employees for Child Torture and Violation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In response to the arrests, WWASP rallied parents and accused the Czech authorities of "reverting to their communist past", with majority owner Ralph Atkin noting that dealing with the Czech's was "like dealing with the KGB." WWASP closed the school and transferred children to other of its facilities, a large number of them to Carolina Springs.
CSA received its first cease and desist order from the Department of Social Services on October 30, 1998 and the program has been in turmoil since that time. While the Department of Social Services recently agreed to continue its hearing requesting an injunction, the Department of Environmental Control issued its own cease and desist as has the County of Abbeville.
