Home Searched In Cindy Crawford Extortion Probe

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Cindy Crawford dons a little black dress at the launch party of the Omega 2009 Constellation Collection in London on October 15, 2009
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Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford step out at the AFI FEST 2009 screening of ‘A Single Man’ at the Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California on November 5, 2009
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Cindy Crawford attends the World Premiere of ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ at the Odeon Leicester Square, London, October 14, 2009
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The lovely Cindy Crawford attends the opening of the Omega Boutique at The Village, Westfield on October 15, 2009 in London, England

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FIRST PUBLISHED: November 15, 2009 5:22 PM EST

BERLIN, Germany --

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 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.

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