The star of The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys Steven “Steve” McBee Sr. was sentenced to 24 months in prison for his part in a multimillion-dollar crop fraud scam.
Us Weekly reported that He pled guilty in 2024, but his previous hearing had been pushed back until today.
The crime:
The U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Missouri announced in a November 2024 press release that Steve had been charged with one count of federal crop insurance fraud following an FBI investigation into his dealings in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Steve was accused of making a false report to his 2018 insurance provider, Rain and Hill, underreporting his “corn crop by approximately 674,812 bushels.” The DOJ reported “his total 2018 soybean crop by approximately 155,833 bushels.”
He also allegedly received more than $2.6 million in federal crop insurance benefits. Also, there was an additional $552,000 in federal crop insurance premium subsidies following the false report.
This wasn’t an isolated incident:
The DOJ claimed that Steve also committed fraud in 2019 and 2020, which consisted of allegedly misrepresenting that his soybean crops were “the first crop in certain fields” in 2019 while using the same land to grow wheat. The government explained that by allegedly double cropping, Steve was “not entitled” to the insurance claim he later filed.
In 2020, Steve allegedly gave NAU Country Insurance “false plant dates” to fraudulently obtain a new insurance policy.
Steve, for his part, pleaded guilty in November 2024. He confessed that his farm sold “more than 1.2 million bushels of corn and nearly 416,000 bushels of soybeans” to another party in 2018.
He proceeded to sign a plea deal. Steve agreed to pay restitution after the government reportedly lost more than $4 million at the hands of Steve.
Steve’s plea served as an admission of guilt that he “engaged in fraudulent activity from 2018 to 2020 that caused an economic loss to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.”
Steve was initially set to be sentenced in March, but it was changed multiple times before landing on Thursday’s date. Following his fourth resentencing delay in September, Steve was ordered to relinquish three of his designer watches.
The court order cited a U.S. code that allows them to seek forfeiture “of all property, real and personal, constituting, or derived from, proceeds traceable to the offenses, directly or indirectly, as a result of the violations alleged.” The filing explained that “The United States has located assets belonging to the defendant Steve A. McBee that were not directly obtained through the offenses alleged in the Information.”
The time:
U.S. District Court Judge ordered Steve McBee to twenty-four months in prison and an additional two years on supervised release.
The former McBee Farm & Cattle CEO will also have to pay $4,022,124 in restitution for his crimes.
According to the filing, McBee must self-surrender before 2 p.m. on Monday, December 1.
