McBee Dynasty's Steven McBee Faces 30 Years for Multi-Million Dollar Crop Insurance Fraud.
Steven McBee, the patriarch of the McBee Dynasty, has pleaded guilty to a multi-million dollar crop insurance fraud scheme and now faces a potential 30-year prison sentence. McBee acknowledged that he falsified documents to obtain unauthorized insurance benefits, resulting in a loss of over $4 million to the U.S. government.
The 52-year-old star of Real American Cowboys waived his right to a grand jury and entered his guilty plea in a federal court in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 5, as announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri. He was charged with one count of federal crop insurance fraud related to benefits he was not entitled to receive. As the owner of McBee Farming Operations, McBee admitted to engaging in fraudulent activities from 2018 to 2020, which caused significant financial harm to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
He now faces a lengthy prison sentence, with a sentencing hearing to be scheduled after a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office. The Department of Justice reported that the total loss to the government amounted to $4,022,123, and McBee will also need to forfeit an additional $3,158,923. The court will determine the full restitution amount later, as outlined in his plea agreement. According to the DOJ, McBee confessed to submitting a false report to Rain and Hail, a company backed by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. He admitted to providing fraudulent documents that significantly underreported his 2018 corn crop by about 674,812 bushels and his soybean crop by approximately 155,833 bushels.
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McBee's fraudulent reports enabled him to collect $2,605,943 in federal crop insurance benefits, along with $552,980 in federal crop insurance premium subsidies. In total, he unlawfully received $3,158,923 in benefits. The farm owner also confessed that in 2018, his company sold over 1.2 million bushels of corn and nearly 416,000 bushels of soybeans to another buyer.
However, his crop insurance records for that year showed that only 340,476 bushels of corn and 190,171 bushels of soybeans were reported as produced. Furthermore, McBee provided false information to his insurance company regarding the soybean crop in 2019. He claimed that the soybeans were the first crop planted in certain fields, despite the fact that wheat had already been harvested from those areas, according to the DOJ press release.
The insurance policy covered the first crop planted on a piece of land within a given year, and his misleading claims allowed him to receive federal crop insurance benefits that he was not entitled to. In 2020, the television personality “submitted false information when securing crop insurance through NAU Country Insurance,” as stated by the DOJ. McBee also reported incorrect planting dates on his crop insurance documents with NAU Country Insurance.
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His company harvested corn after the final planting date in 2020, rendering it ineligible for insurance. As a result, he received federal crop insurance benefits that he was not authorized to obtain. Additionally, the television personality admitted to committing further fraud in 2019 and 2020.
Season 1 of The McBee Family Dynasty: Real Life Cowboys, which premiered on Peacock, provided an inside look at the workings of McBee Farm and Cattle, set against the backdrop of the intense farming and ranching scene in Missouri. The ranch found itself "at a crossroads, ready to either achieve billion-dollar success or face financial disaster, depending on a crucial decision from a Venture Capital investment firm," as stated in the official synopsis.
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The description further reveals that McBee’s "personal challenges jeopardize the family business's stability." With rising tensions between Steve and his sons — Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer alum Steven Jr., Jesse, and Cole — following a dramatic affair, viewers can anticipate a thrilling journey filled with ambition and betrayal.