NEW YORK — Daniel Sikkema, the estranged husband of the New York gallerist Brent Sikkema, has been sentenced to life in prison for arranging his murder in Rio de Janeiro.
U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos imposed the sentence in Manhattan federal court, followed by five years of supervised release, federal prosecutors announced on November 4. A jury had convicted Daniel Sikkema, 56, in May after a two-week trial, finding him guilty of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.
Brent Sikkema, whose gallery is now known as Sikkema Jenkins & Co., was found dead at his home in Rio in January 2024. He was 75.
Eleven payments, a secret phone
The couple were in the middle of a bitter divorce. Prosecutors said that in 2023 Daniel Sikkema agreed to pay a Cuban man, Alejandro Prevez, to kill his husband. Sikkema, who holds U.S. and Cuban citizenship, sent eleven payments to Prevez and to a woman Prevez was romantically involved with in Cuba, routing the money through the names of friends, employees and relatives who had no idea what it was for.
On January 14, 2024, Prevez stabbed Brent Sikkema 18 times inside the Rio residence, according to prosecutors. Within minutes he called Daniel Sikkema several times on a number the two had set up for the plot. Shortly afterwards, Sikkema sent him $5,000 and promised more.
Brazilian police arrested Prevez four days later, on January 18. His case is still before the Brazilian courts.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald put the motive down to greed and said the sentence held Sikkema accountable for a calculated plot. The FBI’s New York field office led the investigation, working with Rio de Janeiro’s civil police, Brazilian federal prosecutors, police in Minas Gerais and prosecutors in Castellón, Spain.
A gallery that shaped careers
The killing shook the New York art world. The West Chelsea gallery Brent Sikkema ran with his partner in the business, Michael Jenkins, was best known as the long-time home of Kara Walker, whose cut-paper silhouettes it championed from early in her career. Over the years its programme also took in artists such as Mark Bradford, Leonardo Drew, Amy Sillman and Jeffrey Gibson.
For those who knew him, the sentencing closes the American side of a case that has hung over the gallery for almost two years. The man accused of carrying out the killing has yet to face a verdict in Brazil.