All of the evidence I could gather indicate that it did, in fact, happen in at least some form. At the very least, other employees (whom I have know for years) said that he was gone, as of the date in question. They were not told the cause (as would be expected in most companies).
When I did my own investigation into this, I was told the person in question:
was not giving a warning, was not given a second chance, was not already on any kind of performance plan, had many strong ties in the organization since he had been here for over 3 1/2 years, and is also currently unemployed with no hopes of getting any jobs at this point.
I learned this information (with varying levels of detail) from 2 different independent sources, once a while ago (when the incident first happened), once recently reconfirmed. I really wish I was in a hiring position right now. There are an awful lot of GOOD people out there who need jobs and who can do awesome work. It's a wonderful time to startup a company, you can hire really good people for far less than it cost 2-4 years ago (because inflated salaries have come back down to realistic levels). If only you can shake the startup money loose from a VC, which is only possible if you have a *real* business plan. jc