Since the site has an international audience, is DoD = U.S. Department of Defense?

Seems like misrepresenting academic credentials is a crime in many US States, including Washington, Tennessee, and Florida. I wonder if there are similar federal laws. This paper is very interesting.

What is your goal? I'm not sure this belongs on Academia.SE because although it involves an academic degree it seems like it's about dealing with academic credentials outside of academia.

Many universities have an "expiration" rule for ABD. I'd think that after about seven years, it would be difficult to actually complete a degree. They are engaged in a fraud. Fire them.

@Buffy I agree. But, good luck to the OP with DoD HR.

@NAMcMahon, ABD is an informal designation, not a formal one. But it clearly means that "I haven't yet got a doctorate and have not yet fulfilled the requirements, and may never do". It is fraud to imply that you have finished a degree when you clearly have not. ABD means "Still PhD Student".

I would think that DoD would be especially sensitive to people misrepresenting their qualifications. That would be especially true if they try to publicly represent the department as something they are not.

@Buffy There can be a formal component to "ABD", as well, though the acronym itself is clearly informal; my institution called it "dissertator status", and it came with some reduced tuition and fees.

Is the dissertator status normally achieved in the first couple of years of the PhD, as I understand it the American system is the first couple of years is coursework (analogous to the Masters degrees used elsewhere) and the remainder of the time is spent on research. There is a very big difference between ABD meaning just starting research and ABD meaning just need to write up my thesis.

I think this question is a better fit for the workplace stack exchange and you would get more accurate advice there on how to handle the situation. For what it’s worth, from my perspective as an academic your employee is committing fraud and it is totally appropriate for you to take much more serious action than you seem to be contemplating, including in connection with the social media stuff that’s ostensibly outside your purview. Claiming a nonexistent degree is very serious professional misconduct and invites very harsh consequences.

"Now I'm not one to ever demand to be called Dr., especially since this is not a[n ...] academic office." I find this perspective a bit surprising, because whenever I meet people who care about "Dr." and similar titles, I will immediately assume that they do not work in academia (might be a cultural thing though, both regarding the country and the academic field).

@BryanKrause, I'd guess that even at your place, after a decade the status would change and a person would need to jump through some hoops to continue. And, I also suspect your institution would object to such a student referring to themselves as Dr if asked.

@Buffy Yes, it would be weird to me to represent yourself as a dissertator if you're no longer at the institution working on your dissertation, definitely wrong to refer to yourself as "Dr", and I believe most people who would put "PhD (ABD)" in their email signature or similar are doing so hoping to capture some credit they haven't earned from someone who doesn't know what ABD means.

I’d also suggest posting a version of this question on law.se. Your employee’s conduct may be a crime under federal law due to his lies being made in the context of work for the federal government, see here and here.

This ABD thing is rather amusing to me. Where I'm from, ABD is what you start the PhD as.

Maybe I missed something but: how does the OP know that their supervisee does not have a PhD? That they didn't have one at some point in the past certainly seems inconclusive absent further information. I would advise checking up on this with the institution before pursuing any kind of formal corrective action.

@AnonymousPhysicist (I know you're not ping-able here, but just leaving it anyway in case you see) Those are fair criticisms. I am certainly not a lawyer. However, might telling everyone you have a PhD to get paid by the federal government be "a systematic, ongoing course of conduct with intent to defraud one or more person, or with intent to obtain property from one or more persons by false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises or willful misrepresentations of a future act."?