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Daniel Sikkema was accused of hiring the hitman who stabbed the gallerist in his Brazil townhouse in January 2024.
Daniel Sikkema has been found guilty by a federal jury in a murder-for-hire scheme targeting his estranged husband, Brent Sikkema, a renowned New York art dealer.
The 75-year-old gallerist was brutally stabbed 18 times in his Rio de Janeiro home on January 14, 2024. The shocking crime left the art community and Sikkema’s friends and family reeling.
The investigation quickly focused on Alejandro Triana Prevez, a Cuban security guard and delivery driver residing in Brazil, who alleged that Daniel Sikkema hired him for the murder. Prevez was detained by Brazilian authorities four days following the attack.
Prevez remains incarcerated, awaiting trial. His lawyer, speaking to the Wall Street Journal, which initially reported the verdict, stated, “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.”
Daniel Sikkema faced arrest in Manhattan in March 2024 on passport fraud charges. Subsequently, he was charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hire and conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country.
During a five-day trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Daniel Sikkema orchestrated Brent’s murder amid heated disputes over finances and a difficult divorce process. A voice note from December 2023, cited in court, purportedly captured Daniel Sikkema saying, “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.”
Investigators discovered a selfie taken by Prevez in Sikkema’s kitchen and confirmed phone communications between Prevez and Daniel Sikkema via a burner phone. Though the defense acknowledged the $9,000 transfer from Daniel Sikkema to Prevez around the murder date, they contended it was payment for work done in Cuba for the couple.
Hyperallergic has reached out to Daniel Sikkema’s defense attorneys for their response.
Brent Sikkema, co-founder of Sikkema Jenkins Gallery—now Sikkema Malloy Jenkins—with Michael Jenkins in the early 1990s, was celebrated for fostering deep relationships with artists like Kara Walker, Sheila Hicks, and Vik Muniz.
US Attorney Jay Clayton remarked, “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.”
