The 56-year-old man is accountable for a “cold, calculated murder-for-hire plot,” said US Attorney Jamie McDonald.
Daniel Sikkema, 56, has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in the murder-for-hire of his estranged husband, New York art dealer Brent Sikkema, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced today, November 4.
Brent Sikkema, the 75-year-old co-owner of the Manhattan gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Company, was found dead in his Rio de Janeiro residence in January 2024. He was stabbed 18 times. Two months after the incident, Daniel Sikkema was arrested in Manhattan on charges of passport fraud and later received additional counts of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire, and conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country. A federal jury found him guilty on those charges following a two-week trial in May.
“Today’s life sentence holds Daniel Sikkema accountable for a cold, calculated murder-for-hire plot that resulted in the murder of his husband, Brent Sikkema,” US Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a press release. Daniel Sikkema was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.
“For months, the defendant manipulated friends, family, and employees to execute a killing driven by greed. His actions demonstrated a profound disregard for human life and the rule of law,” McDonald continued.
Daniel Sikkema had paid the couple’s former security guard, Alejandro Prevez, to kill his husband as their divorce proceedings dragged on. Shortly after the fatal stabbing, Daniel Sikkema sent $5,000 to Prevez and promised future payments. The former security guard was arrested by Brazilian law enforcement four days after the murder and still awaits charges in Brazilian courts, according to the press release.
Brent Sikkema co-founded Sikkema Malloy Jenkins (then called Sikkema Jenkins Gallery) with his business partner, Michael Jenkins, in the early 1990s, where he showed artists including Kara Walker, Sheila Hicks, and Vik Muniz. The gallery currently represents more than 30 artists.