Since you will provide no citations or links, I did my own research. Yes, Patriot Univervisity is an unaccredited college operating in a wing of College Heights Baptist Church, and it has unusually low standards for issuing degrees, but it isn't a degree mill.
There's some debate on that, but for the sake of argument, PU became PBU several years ago, and has since offered a more legitimate cirriculum. Hovind got his degree prior to that, when it was still PU.
A fraud would cite a fake degree from Harvard or Yale, or some other university.
He is fraudulent when presenting his degree to be a Doctorate in Education instead of a doctorate in Christian Education. He is also fraudulent in his dissertation. That alone is reason to quanify him as having fake credentials.
Dubious, to be sure, but I'd say that Hovind is more guilty of being too trusting and too eager to refute evolutionary garbage than anything else.
I refuse to believe that there is such a shortage of people in the field of creation science, that one man must misrepresent his education. Further, I haven't even mentioned his claims in his series. There's abundant with misrepresentations, but that's better left for a different thread (this is about his criminal record and dishonesty).
Dubious is an easy way to say dishonest. Scripture calls such a person a liar, and in this case, he's an unrepentant one. This is not the kind of example that Christians should be using as source material for defense of creationism.
Also, he never claimed the replica to be an the actual bone.
He claims it is from a 13 foot man. It's actually a 2:1 replica from a normal height woman. Not once does he say it's a 2:1 replica.
I know one man personally who hasn't filed a return since 1985.
This isn't an issue of an individual believing he doesn't owe taxes. This is a case of falsely declaring bankruptcy, various tax-related charges, and making threats against federal officials, not to mention disregarding county zoning regulations in regards to his dinosaur adventure land park. It also involves refusing to list his ministry as a 501c3 orgaination (since it's not a church, it is required to file for tax exempt status).
However, in regards to his taxes, he attempted to file for bankruptcy on the claim that he wasn't a citizen of the US and did not earn income, afterwhich it was discovered that he lied on court documents about his possessions and income. BTW, Hovind was Hovind was first reported to the IRS by Rebekah Horton, who at the time was vp of Pensicola Christian College. His tax debt was found to be in the $500,000 range.
But wait, there's more. Hovind was also tried on 12 counts of willful failure to collect, account for, and pay Federal income and FICA taxes, 45 counts of falsifying documents to evade income reporting, and 1 count of obstruction.
Anyway, though Hovind's credentials are dubious to say the least, it doesn't rise to the level of fraud.
Passing off oneself as something s/he is not qualifies as fraud.