Reality television personality Steven McBee has admitted guilt in a multimillion-dollar crop insurance fraud scheme that could result in a three-decade prison sentence. The star of The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys waived his right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty to one count of federal crop insurance fraud in a federal court in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 5, as announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Missouri.
The Department of Justice reports McBee acknowledged engaging in “fraudulent activity from 2018 to 2020 that caused an economic loss to the U.S. Department of Agriculture,” totaling more than $4 million. As the owner of McBee Farming Operations, he confessed to submitting falsified documents to Rain and Hail, a company reinsured by the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, the DOJ press release states.
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The DOJ revealed that McBee sent “fraudulent documents to Rain and Hail that underreported his total 2018 corn crop by approximately 674,812 bushels and underreported his total 2018 soybean crop by approximately 155,833 bushels.”
These deceptive reports enabled McBee to receive unauthorized benefits totaling $3,158,923, including $2,605,943 in federal crop insurance benefits and $552,980 in premium subsidies, according to court documents. Records show his company sold more than 1.2 million bushels of corn and nearly 416,000 bushels of soybeans to another party in 2018,…
