German police search home in connection with alleged extortion attempt against Cindy Crawford

Home searched in Cindy Crawford extort probe

BERLIN — German police said Sunday that they had searched a home in connection with an alleged extortion scheme targeting former supermodel Cindy Crawford and her family.

U.S. authorities had said Thursday that a German man had been charged in the U.S. with trying to extort $100,000 (euro67,258) from Crawford and her entrepreneur husband Rande Gerber over a photo of their daughter, then 7, bound to a chair and gagged. He was accused of threatening to sell or release the photo to the media.

The daughter told her parents, who were unaware of the photo, that her former nanny took the picture as part of a “cops and robbers” game, according to an affidavit.

U.S. authorities say the suspect, twenty-six-year-old Edis Kayalar, was taken into federal custody in the U.S. for an immigration violation three months ago and deported to Germany. He was believed to be in the Stuttgart area.

German authorities would not say where the suspect is or whether he had been charged in Germany.

Several items were confiscated from the apartment in Kirchheim/Teck in the Stuttgart area but nobody was arrested in the search on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

He was charged in the U.S. with one count of extortion. If convicted, he could face up to two years in prison in the U.S. It was not clear if he has an attorney in the U.S.

Police did not say if the apartment belonged to Kayalar.