Estranged husband convicted in Brazil hitman killing of New York art dealer
A Manhattan jury found Daniel Sikkema guilty of hiring a hitman to kill his estranged husband in Rio, turning a divorce into a cross-border murder plot.
Wealth, a bitter divorce and a killing in Rio de Janeiro collided in Manhattan federal court Friday, where jurors convicted Daniel Sikkema of hiring a hitman to kill his estranged husband, New York art dealer Brent Sikkema. The verdict exposed a plot that moved between New York, Brazil and federal courtrooms, and it now leaves Daniel Sikkema facing a mandatory life sentence.
Daniel Sikkema, 55, a U.S. and Cuban citizen who lived in New York, was found guilty of murder-for-hire conspiracy resulting in death. Prosecutors said he used a burner phone line, multiple payments and intermediaries to conceal his role in the scheme while the couple’s contentious divorce played out. They said he was in frequent contact with the alleged hitman before and after the killing and funneled more than $10,000 to him, then arranged about another $5,000 and promised more.
Brent Sikkema, 75, was stabbed to death in his Rio townhouse on Jan. 14, 2024. Prosecutors said the killing came after Daniel Sikkema agreed in 2023 to pay another person to carry out the murder in Brazil. Trial testimony also said Daniel Sikkema told others he hoped Brent would die, underscoring the hostility behind the case. The alleged hitman was arrested in Brazil and remains jailed there.
The case pulled in the art world as well as international law enforcement. Brent Sikkema had amassed a multimillion-dollar estate and co-owned Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, the Manhattan contemporary art gallery that represented artists including Kara Walker, Vik Muniz and Arturo Herrera for nearly 30 years. The couple had a teenage son, a detail that cast the courtroom battle in starkly personal terms as prosecutors described a financial and emotional rupture ending in violence.
Daniel Sikkema was arrested in April 2024, after earlier federal charges in the Southern District of New York included passport fraud. His lawyer, Florian Miedel, argued in opening statements that the government’s case rested on circumstantial evidence and that there was no proof of guilt. But Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton called the killing a "senseless, cold-blooded murder" and said the verdict brought a "meaningful measure of justice" to a case that stretched from an elite New York gallery to a jail cell in Brazil.
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