Model Sentenced to Jail for Cindy Crawford Extortion

By PopEater Staff Posted Mar 9th 2010 10:04AM

Former model Edis Kayalar was convicted Tuesday in German court of blackmailing supermodel Cindy Crawford and will spend the next two years in jail, the AP is reporting.

The court determined that Kayalar extorted money from Crawford in 2009 by threatening to release a photo of her daughter, then 7, gagged and bound to a chair. He received $1,000 from the model for a copy of the image, but then turned around and asked for an additional $100,000.

The photo was reportedly taken by the couples nanny during a game of "cops and robbers," according to an affidavit obtained by the AP. The unnamed nanny has not been charged. According to the affidavit, Kayalar stole the photo from the nanny and repeatedly tried to get money from Crawford and her husband, Rande Gerber.

Kayalar initially had second thoughts and was going to return the photo. Gerber later met with him at a bar, where Kayalar showed him a copy of the photo and said he also took a handwritten note from the nanny's apartment that read, "The baby sitter went crazy and tied everyone up and they need your help! Please."

The nanny said she had taken the photo as a prank and was going to post it and the note on the front door of the family's house, according to the affidavit. The nanny never went through with the joke.

Gerber eventually got the photo from Kayalar and paid him $1,000 in cash "for his trouble," the affidavit said. But Kayalar is accused of demanding more money while saying he had another copy of the photo.

"He believed he could have received $500,000 from the tabloids for the photograph and that he deserved more money from them," the document said.

Kayalar was taken into federal custody for an immigration violation in 2009. However, he called Crawford and Gerber again on Nov. 1 and threatened to sell or release the photo to the media if his demand for $100,000 wasn't met, the affidavit said.

According to TMZ, he is a former model for HERMAEVENTS.

Kayalar said, "[I] was not trying to destroy a little girl's life, but the release of the photograph was not going to be something positive for the victims' image," according to the document.

Kayalar allegedly gave Gerber a German bank account number and routing information and said the money should be wired within three days or the photo would be made public.

Crawford's spokeswoman Annett Wolf issued a statement saying, "Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford intend to pursue any and all available legal action against anyone who aids the perpetrator in the distribution or sale of the photograph of their daughter."

Crawford, who divorced actor Richard Gere in 1995, married Gerber in 1998. They have two children.

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