From Fox News: Steve McBee Sr. is preparing to begin his two-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving crop insurance.
In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the 52-year-old reality star shared how he reacted to learning he would be going to prison, saying, “It was a sobering moment.”
He explained that when he first heard about the investigation, he “really wasn’t overly concerned,” because, as a business owner for more than 33 years, he had “gone through every audit under the sun.” He thought it was just like any other audit, and after they got the necessary information, “it’ll go away like the rest of them.”
However, after a meeting with his lawyer, he came to understand that this time was different.
McBee explained that he farms over 40,000 acres in three states, and lamented that his entire crop insurance policy was cancelled because his plant date on one small piece of land was past the required deadline.
Crop insurance companies do have specific deadlines on when the crops must be planted in order to be covered by insurance, to ensure that the seed is planted within the growing season and therefore would be a viable crop.
The crop insurance is intended to cover natural disasters, such as wind, hail and insect damage. The plant date deadlines are to prevent someone from planting their crop too late and then filing an insurance claim just because the crop didn’t have time to mature.
However, McBee called the investigation a “bullying technique” and insisted that planting late was just simply “day to day common business.” McBee has been sentenced to a whopping two years in prison. He has also been ordered to pay $4,022,124 in restitution.
WATCH the interview below:
More from PEOPLE.com: McBee was ordered to self-surrender to federal prison in Yankton, S.D., before 2 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 1. He recently told PEOPLE that he and his family will drive to Yankton on Sunday and stay the night “so they can see the town and get comfortable with everything.”
McBee admitted to sending “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,” according to a Department of Justice press release. Rain and Hail is a crop insurance company that works with the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation to offer farmers federally reinsured policies.
The falsified reports allowed McBee to receive a total of $3,158,923 in unauthorized benefits, per the release. The DOJ claimed the government lost $4,022,123 as a result of McBee’s fraud, which is the same amount prosecutors requested McBee pay in restitution.
On Thursday, McBee posted a video on Instagram, said he was taking one last walk around the ranch.
View this post on Instagram
Reality star Steve McBee Sr. blasts government fraud case as a ‘bullying technique’ before heading to prison https://t.co/DJrLvaUCZL
— Fox News Entertainment (@FoxNewsEnt) November 30, 2025
READ MORE from Fox News.
Steve McBee Sr. Says ‘Count Your Blessings’ as He Spends Last Thanksgiving on His Ranch Days Before Reporting to Prison https://t.co/vQ1uI2nBYX
— People (@people) November 28, 2025
Follow us on X (Formerly Twitter.)
The DML News App: www.X.com/DMLNewsApp
The Dennis Michael Lynch Podcast archive is available below, with the most recent on top. Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show by downloading The DML News App or go to Apple Podcasts.
