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Fri, 22 May 2026 17:42:40 -0700
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Art Dealer’s Estranged Husband Convicted in Murder-For-Hire Scheme
how gay
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/art-dealers-estranged-husband-convicted-in-murder-for-hire-scheme-f65cca35?mod=hp_featst_pos5
Art Dealer’s Estranged Husband Convicted in Murder-For-Hire Scheme
Prosecutors had accused Daniel Sikkema of hiring a handyman to kill the famed dealer Brent Sikkema in his Brazilian vacation home.
By
Kelly Crow
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May 22, 2026 2:42 pm ET
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(1 min)
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Daniel Sikkema was found guilty on three counts of conspiring to hire and pay a hitman to kill Brent Sikkema. Brent Sikkema
In a grisly case that shocked the art world, a Cuban-American man was found guilty of his role in a murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the stabbing death of
his estranged husband, prominent New York art dealer Brent Sikkema, during a holiday in Brazil.
A federal jury on Friday found Daniel Sikkema guilty on three counts of conspiring to hire and pay a hitman to kill the 75-year-old dealer who was vacationing
at their second home in Rio de Janeiro two years ago.
Brent Sikkema was murdered while on a holiday in Brazil in 2024. Courtesy of Sikkema Malloy Jenkins
Daniel had remained in New York at the time with their son Lucas, now age 15.
“He bought and paid for his husband’s murder, and he manipulated friends to do it,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Foster about Daniel in her
closing statement to the jury.
Daniel, who is in his mid-50s, didn’t show emotion when the verdict was read aloud or when he was led out of the Manhattan courtroom for the Southern District
of New York. His son didn’t attend the verdict. His legal team declined to comment afterward on whether he would appeal. Before the trial, his lawyer said
Daniel was innocent.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s office had accused Daniel of hiring a Cuban security officer-turned-delivery-driver living in Brazil named Alejandro
Triana Prevez to murder Sikkema amid a tumultuous, drawn-out divorce.
Neither legal team disputed the actual killing was by Prevez or the fact that Daniel secretly paid Prevez about $9,000 before and after the murder and then lied
to friends and authorities about knowing the murderer. But Daniel’s defense attorney Richard Levitt told jurors that the payments were backpay for work Prevez
had done for the couple in Cuba, and added that Daniel only masked their connection “because he was panicking after the murder.”
In the early morning hours of Jan. 14, 2024, Prevez walked into the Sikkemas’ townhome in Rio and grabbed a Santoku knife from the kitchen, police records
said. He found Brent alone upstairs, asleep. Prevez stabbed him 18 times, according to court filings.
Alejandro Triana Prevez was hired by Daniel Sikkema to murder art dealer Brent Sikkema.
Alejandro Triana Prevez was hired by Daniel Sikkema to murder art dealer Brent Sikkema. Reuters
News of the killing spread quickly around the world because of Brent’s prominence as a respected New York art dealer who championed artists including Kara
Walker and Vik Muniz through his gallery Sikkema Jenkins, which he started in the early 1990s with business partner Michael Jenkins. (That gallery is now
renamed Sikkema Malloy Jenkins.) Within a few days of Brent’s death, Brazilian authorities located and arrested Prevez, who eventually claimed that he had
killed the dealer at Daniel’s behest in exchange for money.
Prevez is currently in a Brazilian prison awaiting trial. Reached after the verdict, his 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.”
The gallery declined to comment.
Some of the notoriety surrounding the investigation in Brazil stemmed from a handwritten confession Prevez wrote while in custody, in which he claimed Daniel
had encouraged him to kill Brent. The confession was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal but wasn’t included in the U.S. case. Prevez later recanted the
confession, his lawyer said.
Prosecutors also laid out a series of 11 wire-transfer payments and multiple calls and texts between Daniel and Prevez, often via housekeepers and other
intermediaries in the months leading up to the killing and immediately afterward. Prevez tried to call Daniel minutes after the murder, records show.
Levitt told jurors that Daniel “would never be violent” and was merely venting to friends about the ongoing divorce proceedings and paying off old debts.
The entrance to the Rio apartment where Brent Sikkema was found dead. Associated Press
The couple, who met in 2007 and married six years later, did agree on one thing: By 2022, their marriage had begun to fall apart and they began divorce
proceedings. But they remained locked in disputes for the next two years over custody of Lucas and the division of Brent’s assets, according to court
documents. Brent disinherited Daniel from his will. At one point, Daniel wanted to settle for $6 million, according to an email he sent to Brent included in the
court filings. James Deaver, Brent’s executor, said Brent rejected the request as excessive because he had amassed the bulk of his fortune years before the
couple wed.
“We hope this brings closure to this tragic story and we can focus on the well-being of Lucas,” said Deaver, who serves as a trustee of Brent’s estate.
Lucas has a legal guardian in Ben Rodriguez-Cubeñas, program director for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Culpeper Arts & Culture program. Lucas will also
receive more of his inheritance once he reaches adulthood.
Daniel now faces a mandatory life sentence, though the court didn’t immediately disclose a sentencing date.
Additional reporting by Samantha Pearson.
Copyright ©2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the May 23, 2026, print edition as 'Art Dealer’s Husband Convicted in His Murder'.
Fri, 22 May 2026 19:07:28 -0700
zerosugar from private IP
Reply #13225667
hmmm there was a 20 year age gap between them. I still feel bad for this old guy. He didn't deserve to die. This case involves gay men, so it won't get as much
attention maybe as say the whole Scott Peterson thing and here in the midwest Drew Peterson.
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