This Missouri farmer got his own reality TV show. Then he got busted for scamming the feds
Fans of the reality TV series The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys had already suspected that the patriarch at the center of the family drama based just an hour from Kansas City wouldn’t be back for season 2.
In the final episode of the first season, we see Steve McBee Sr. sobbing at the wheel of his pickup as he drives off for parts unknown. All the stress and strain of trying to save the family’s sprawling farm outside Gallatin, Missouri, from financial ruin had wrecked him, and now it would be up to his four sons to save the day.
“Dad’s leaving,” eldest son Steven Jr. tells two of his three brothers. “All he said is he has no idea when he’s going to be back.”
Left unsaid was the real-life backstory that led to McBee Sr. facing a prison sentence that could be handed down before the second season airs next year. Inside a courtroom at the federal courthouse in downtown Kansas City last week, McBee pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government out of millions of dollars.
McBee, 52, admitted that he falsified records to get crop insurance payments he wasn’t entitled to. He lied about production losses of corn and soybeans grown on the thousands of acres that provided the scenery for the family drama, whose first 10 episodes were shown on the USA Network and are currently streaming on Peacock.
McBee waived a grand jury indictment and a trial, pleading guilty to one count of federal crop insurance fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years.
A judge will determine how much time he will have to serve and how much he must pay in restitution for the $4 million that the prosecution claims he stole from taxpayers.
McBee has made no mention of that in the days since to his 77,000 followers on Instagram.
Three days before signing his agreement to plead guilty, he was on the social media platform promoting Steven Jr.’s appearance as host of the Community Services League’s annual charity ball at the Loew’s Kansas City Hotel.
“Super excited to be here and watch my son as he’s the master of ceremonies,” he said.
But in an email to The Star from his defense attorney, McBee expressed remorse for his actions, while continuing to talk up the family’s many business startups whose deep debts set up the financial crisis that was the basis for the reality series and conceivably the illegal acts that led to his prosecution.
“I entered a Plea Agreement to address crop insurance issues with farming operations back in 2018-2020. I personally accept responsibility, for the buck stops with me. I will always acknowledge a failure in judgment and action, just like I will always celebrate our McBee team when it enjoys success.
“From our first generation family farm, to all other McBee family ventures, we are committed to conducting business the right way. The high standards we satisfy now in 2024 will continue to guide McBee endeavors and projects moving forward.”
Reality show cowboys
McBee Sr.’s sentencing is set for March 13, almost one year to the day after he emerged from obscurity to become the central character in the premiere episode of “The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys” last March 11.
The somewhat real-life series – reality TV is almost always exaggerated and scripted – begins with a quick retelling of McBee’s rags-to-riches origin story, and of how he and his sons were on the verge of huge success from the McBee Farm & Cattle Company and various spinoff businesses, including a chain of car washes with locations around the Kansas City metro.
“We’re on our way to being a billion-dollar company,” Steve Sr. says as the camera lens captures the wide, verdant vistas of the McBee spread in Missouri’s Green Hills region.
But that success depends upon landing a $100 million infusion of cash from a venture capital group on the East Coast. The money, we’re told, will relieve the hard-working McBees from the crushing debt they’d taken on to expand their business and support their affluent lifestyles.
The McBees have a Robinson R 44 helicopter stored in a barn that they roll out to survey their Daviess County realm.
When they’re not saddling horses and riding the range wearing their Stetsons, on the show the McBee men drive fancy new pickup trucks, throw big parties and take a trip Nashville. Steven Jr. drives his love interest to a fancy Italian restaurant in Brookside in a black Mercedes SUV.
At season’s end, the venture capital deal falls through, and viewers sense trouble’s ahead.
“We’ve got $70 million in loans out,” Steven Jr. explains to his brothers in the closing minutes of that final episode. “We may lose the farm.”
Cutaway to sobbing dad making his escape.
Sons cleaning up dad’s mess
Steven Jr. and reviewers have described the series as a cross between the TV dramas Succession and Yellowstone. Which one of the three eldest McBee boys – Steven Jr., Cole or Jesse – will lead the family business once dad is gone, as their younger brother Brayden wants nothing to do with it?
Anyone paying attention had that figured out from the start. Of course it would be Steven Jr., the brawny hunk whose previous turn starring in another reality series, Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer, was the catalyst for the McBee Dynasty project.
Recently on one of their weekly podcasts, Steven Jr., Jesse and Cole McBee said they have a better handle on the business now that they are in charge.
The family continues to sell steaks, boxes of meat and branded merchandise like caps and T-shirts online.
The McBee website also promotes the family’s other ventures: a line of protein snacks, a custom home building business and McBee’s Coffee n Carwash, which set the family back $50 million in debt to start and put the company at risk. Its 11 locations include three in Independence and one each in Liberty, Lee’s Summit, Belton and Smithville.
The brothers’ guest in the wood-paneled podcast studio with the neon-lit McBee company logo behind them that day was “Mama McBee.” Kristi McBee and their dad divorced several years ago. She runs a company in Lee’s Summit that installs fiber optic cable.
Although mom says she was not happy about her sons participating in a reality TV show and was embarrassed by some of the things portrayed in those first episodes – one scene is of her ex-husband’s profane, drunken rant in front of clients as the company’s finances spiraled – Kristi McBee is among the cast members that Bravo listed in announcing that the second season will move to that cable network next year.
Her ex-husband’s name, however, was noticeably absent, and publicity material never says why.
Court documents give no indication when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began its fraud investigation, or when McBee Sr. became aware that he was a target.
Neither he nor his attorney responded to The Star’s phone and email messages asking whether he learned of it before, during or after season one was filmed.
A spokesman for the Justice Department was asked whether that information was publicly available, but was unable to locate any information as of the close of business on Friday.
McBee predicted that the spotlight might not flatter him when a reporter for TV Insider asked him last spring if he was apprehensive when Steven Jr. proposed opening their private lives to millions of eyeballs across the globe via the show.
Yes, he said. But mostly he worried about what his lenders would think.
“What are my bankers going to say when they see me over here with my personal life?” he said.”I don’t want them looking at me just partying, dating women, and asking, ‘Is he focused on business? Should we really be loaning him $10 million?’
“I had reservations for sure.”
According to the Reddit community that follows the show, he should have.
Long before the fraud charge was announced, a commenter with the handle plantyplanty put it this way:
“My prediction is a year or two from now we learn of money laundering or insurance fraud.”
Called it.
