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Daniel Sikkema was accused of hiring the hitman who stabbed the gallerist in his Brazil townhouse in January 2024.
A federal jury has found Daniel Sikkema guilty for his role in the murder-for-hire of his estranged husband, the New York art dealer Brent Sikkema.
The 75-year-old gallerist was stabbed 18 times in his Rio de Janeiro townhouse in the early hours of January 14, 2024, in a brutal crime that shocked the art world and left Sikkema’s loved ones searching for answers.
The main suspect was soon identified as Alejandro Triana Prevez, a Cuban security guard and delivery driver living in Brazil who claimed that he had been contracted by Daniel Sikkema to commit the crime. He was arrested by Brazilian law enforcement four days after the incident.
Prevez remains in prison awaiting trial. Reached by the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news of today’s verdict, Prevez’s lawyer said, “Mr. Alejandro Triana believes the sentence delivered justice, since Mr. Daniel was the mastermind behind the crime and repeatedly threatened him in order to have the murder carried out.”
In March 2024, Daniel Sikkema was arrested in Manhattan on charges of passport fraud. He was later charged with counts of conspiracy to commit murder for hire and conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country.
During the five-day trial this week, prosecutors accused Daniel Sikkema of hiring a hitman and plotting Brent’s murder amid contentious disagreements over money and a prolonged, acrimonious divorce. In a December 2023 voice note, one of several messages cited in court, Daniel Sikkema allegedly said, “Well, he can take all the time he wants. Let’s see if … instead of getting divorced, I end up a widower, which would suit me much better.”
Police reports said they had found a selfie Prevez had taken in Sikkema’s kitchen and that the investigation also confirmed phone calls between Prevez and Daniel Sikkema using a burner phone. The defense team did not deny that Daniel Sikkema had sent Prevez roughly $9,000 around the time of the murder, but argued that the payment was for work Prevez had performed for the couple in Cuba.
Hyperallergic has reached out to Daniel Sikkema’s defense attorneys for comment.
Brent Sikkema co-founded Sikkema Jenkins Gallery — now renamed Sikkema Malloy Jenkins — with his business partner Michael Jenkins in the early 1990s. He was known for cultivating extensive relationships with artists including Kara Walker, Sheila Hicks, and Vik Muniz.
“The tragedy of Brent Sikkema’s death now has a meaningful measure of justice as a unanimous jury of New Yorkers has held Daniel Sikkema accountable for this senseless, cold-blooded murder,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in a press statement.
