Steve McBee Sr. Breaks His Silence from Federal Prison: “Been Very Busy…”

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Weeks after beginning a two-year sentence in federal prison, The McBee Dynasty: Real American Cowboys’ Steve McBee Sr. is breaking his silence.

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His son Cole McBee, joined by new fiancée, Kacie Adkison, and their 1-year-old daughter, Blair Collins McBee, took over his dad’s Instagram page to share a message on behalf of the Missouri-bred patriarch. Cole, in a video to Steve Sr.’s followers, read from a prewritten statement, drawing on their online correspondence and Steve’s 15-minute phone calls from the Federal Prison Camp in Yankton, South Dakota. Through Cole, the father of four thanked fans for seeing the family through their “life-changing situation.”

Cole said as he referred to a note, “He’s doing as well as could be expected under the current circumstances as he gets adjusted to life in federal prison. He just started receiving mail due to the fact that the prison has to scan and copy everything prior to him receiving it to ensure it doesn’t have no drugs on it. He has been very busy between classes and working at the rec center until about 8:00 p.m. every evening. By the time he showers and eats, he only has about an hour before the 10:00 p.m. count and lights out. But, he does read every single letter and said he looks forward to it every single night.”

Steve apologized for not being able to respond to all his mail due to “the current schedule and limited time.” But, Cole smiled, he appreciated every piece. “Him and his roommates look very forward to them,” Cole continued. “He said not the private ones, though; he doesn’t read those ones off.”

Cole included the detention facility’s address and his father’s inmate number for anyone wishing to send the McBee Farm & Cattle Co. founder a letter.

Why is Steve McBee Sr. in federal prison?
The father of Steven Jr., Jesse, Cole, and Brayden McBee is serving 24 months in a federal prison after pleading guilty in November 2024 to one count of federal crop insurance fraud. His plea required the farmer and businessman to admit he fleeced the U.S. Department of Agriculture out of roughly $3 million in insurance subsidies between 2018 and 2020 by underreporting corn and soybean yields.

Related: Go Inside the McBees’ Nashville Trip Ahead of Steve Sr.’s Prison Sentence (PICS)

In addition to the two-year sentence, a judge ordered Steve to pay $4,022,124 in restitution.

Will Steve McBee Sr.’s legal woes be featured in The McBee Dynasty?
Steven Jr. teased over the BravoCon 2025 weekend in November that audiences will learn more about the family’s legal and financial woes in the upcoming third season.

As he told The Daily Dish, “The fallout from my dad’s situation, and every day, has caused us more stress and more challenges than we ever could have imagined. And, so, you could see all the highs, the lows play out on Season 3 in real time, and we are not holding anything back from it.”

Related: Steven Teases “Crazy” McBee Dynasty Season 3 Amid Dad’s Legal Woes (EXCLUSIVE)

Steven McBee Jr. shares his dad’s “biggest shell shock” in federal prison
On the Dec. 10 episode of the family’s Meet the McBees podcast — now being rebranded to More Than McBee — Steven Jr. said he and the family were exchanging letters with Steve Sr. via CorrLinks, an e-messaging system used to communicate with federal inmates. He then discussed the McBees driving the 300-odd miles from Gallatin to the South Dakota facility where workers collected his belongings.

“A humbling experience,” the son said, but the adjustments didn’t stop there. “The food aspect, I think, was the biggest shell shock,” Steve Jr. revealed. “And also what being away from family is like.”