Cindy Crawford's Blackmailer Gets Jail Time

The German dude faces prison after trying to extort $100,000 from the supermodel and her hubby

By Josh Grossberg Mar 09, 2010 4:22 PMTags
Rande Gerber, Cindy Crawford, Presley, Kaia, Edis Kayalar, MugshotJohn Shearer/Getty Images; FBI

Guess he won't be singing "Freedom" anytime soon.

A German man was convicted on Tuesday of attempting to extort $100,000 from former supermodel Cindy Crawford and her husband, Rande Gerber, after threatening to sell a "sexy" photo of their 7-year-old daughter gagged and tied to a chair to the media.

Judge Joachim Spieth of the court in the southern German town of Kirchheim unter Teck sentenced Edis Kayalar to two years in the Big House for his offense.

"The attempt at blackmail was well-advanced until it failed," Germany's The Local newspaper quoted Spieth as admonishing him.

Kayalar surrendered to German authorities last November after he was deported from the U.S. back to his home country following a criminal complaint filed by the celebrity couple.

Crawford, 44, and Gerber claimed that "Eddie," as he likes to be called, demanded they pony up the cash in order to stop him from disseminating the alarm-sounding picture, which showed their young daughter dressed in shorts and a T-shirt tied to a chair. The duo's former nanny later acknowledged taking the pic as a prank as part of a purported game of cops and robbers.

Unfortunately for her, Kayalar managed to get hold of said pic and the catwalker's cell phone number from her apartment while she slept and hatched the extortion plot, even going so far as to meet with Gerber to make his demands. The pair contacted police, who subsequently orchestrated a sting operation.

Cops and robbers indeed.

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We much prefer talking about Cindy Crawford in a fashion-related sense. Let's take a trip to her old stomping grounds with our Fashion Week Fall 2010: Runway Rundown.