While this doesn't exactly qualify as small business news—it's Friday, and a tidbit from this morning's NY Times was too good not to pass along. With the collapse of Bear Sterns, the credit crunch, and the national mortgage crisis, it's not news that CEOs are getting dumped left, right, and center. Just this week Wachovia canned CEO Ken Thompson and Washington Mutual CEO Kerry Killinger stepped down—both the result of dropping stock prices and mortgage losses.

What's not normal, though, are the troubles of former Broadcom CEO Henry T. Nichols, who was indicted yesterday. Unlike other disgraced CEOs who only commit fraud, rip off investors or shareholders, or simply screw up, Nichols took it a step further. He wasn't just playing with the books (although he did that too). Reports the NY Times:

"Henry T. Nicholas III...was indicted Thursday in California on fraud, conspiracy and drug charges, including allegations that he spiked the drinks of other executives with ecstasy.

In one incident described in the indictment, Mr. Nicholas and his guests are said to have inhaled so much marijuana on a flight to Las Vegas from Orange County, Calif., that clouds of smoke and fumes drifted into the cockpit of the private plane and the pilot was required to put on an oxygen mask."

This obviously takes manipulating your board of directors to an entirely different level.