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Emulex suspect makes bail
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September 8, 2000: 8:41 p.m. ET
College student suspected in 'press release' scam freed from jail
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LOS ANGELES (CNN) - The 23-year-old community-college student who was arrested and charged with fraud last week for allegedly issuing a phony news release -- one that caused Emulex Corp. stock to lose more than $2 billion in value in several hours of trading -- was released on bail Friday.
The alleged cyberspace hoaxter, Mark Jakob, is set to be arraigned September 18.
The U.S. attorney's office signed the release Thursday after Jakob underwent a court-ordered psychological evaluation, and then posted $100,000 bail. He was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Downtown Los Angeles since his arrest late last week.
He was arrested following investigations by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission into a false news release, made to look like it had been issued by the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company, that was picked up and reported as fact by several news organizations.
 Until recently, Jakob was an employee of Internet Wire, the Internet news service that received and distributed the phony Emulex release, which made a series of damaging claims about the company.
The fake release was distributed just as the New York securities markets opened, Shares of Emulex (EMLX: Research, Estimates), which makes electronic components that connect computer systems to network storage devices, plummeted more than 60 percent in the first hour of trade. It regained its value after the hoax was made public.
Jakob had bet the stock value would drop, authorities said. Investors lost an estimated $50 million.
Jakob attended summer classes at El Camino Junior College in Torrance, Calif., and is expected to return there. Federal investigators traced the fake e-mail he sent to perpetrate the hoax to his school, where he was said to spend a lot of time in the computer lab. 
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