BENTON, Ky.—“There are two sides of me,” Brian McClain scrawled on a piece of paper to his wife. One that loves you, he wrote. “The other that stole from people.” For years, McClain had kept cattle here in his hometown and on the Texas Panhandle, buying calves at auction and selling them for profit three months later. His 80,000-head operation—powered by a $50 million loan from an agricultural bank and $120 million from investors—appeared to be a blowout success for the former chemicals plant worker. He lived in a 4,100-square-foot brick home surrounded by a manicured lawn, with gold-framed photos from his…

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