The estranged husband of Brent Sikkema, a prestigious New York art dealer killed in Brazil early last year, allegedly hired a hitman to murder the 75-year-old gallerist amid contentious divorce proceedings, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Daniel Sikkema, 54, of New York City, is accused of financing the killing of his estranged husband, who was found dead at a home he owned in Rio de Janeiro on Jan. 14, 2024.
Brazilian authorities said he’d been stabbed 18 times in a crime that sent shockwaves through the art world.
Four days later, detectives in Rio de Janeiro announced the arrest of a 30-year-old Cuban national, Alejandro Triana Prevez, in the slaying.
Prevez later testified that Sikkema had given him money to commit the murder.
On Tuesday, Danielle R. Sassoon, interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Sikkema and a co-conspirator “planned and carried out a cold-blooded plot to murder” the victim.
Investigators allege that in the days following the grisly murder, Sikkema sent multiple payments to his co-conspirator —referred to as “CC-1” in court papers — and that person’s romantic partner in Cuba, using either a stolen identity or an intermediary to wire the money.
Sikkema, also known as Daniel Garcia Carrera, had been previously charged with passport fraud.
According to a superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday, Sikkema is also charged with one count each of murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder or hire, and conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country.
If convicted, he faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison or death, prosecutors said.