American officials announced charges on Tuesday accusing a New York man of hiring a hit man to kill his husband, Brent Sikkema, a prominent art dealer, in Brazil amid their contentious divorce proceedings.
The acting head of the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, said in a statement that the actions of the man, Daniel Sikkema were “a cold-blooded plot to murder.”
Mr. Sikkema, 54, was arrested and appeared in court on Tuesday, according to federal officials. If convicted, he faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison or death.
Richard Levitt, a lawyer representing Mr. Sikkema, said in an email that his client “now as always maintains his innocence and looks forward to his complete vindication at trial.”
In January 2024, Brazilian authorities found Brent Sikkema’s body with 18 stab wounds inside his Rio de Janeiro apartment, shocking the art world. Through his gallery, which is now called Sikkema Jenkins Malloy, Mr. Sikkema, 75, had spent his career championing artists including Kara Walker, Jeffrey Gibson and Vik Muniz. (Gibson went on to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.)
After investigators recovered surveillance footage that they said showed Brent Sikkema’s former bodyguard, a 30-year-old man named Alejandro Triana Prevez, entering and exiting the home, a manhunt resulted in Mr. Prevez’s arrest.
According to a superseding indictment that was unsealed on Tuesday, Daniel Sikkema arranged a series of payments to the hit man, often through other people, before the killing and arranged a $5,000 payment afterward, promising additional payment later. The indictment does not name Mr. Prevez but notes that the suspect, whom it refers to as CC-1, was arrested on Jan. 18, 2024, the same day that Mr. Prevez was.
In March, Mr. Sikkema was arrested in Manhattan and charged with one count of passport fraud, leading to concerns that he was planning to flee the country. Around the same time, a Brazilian judge was calling for his extradition to face arrest in the country.
The superseding indictment in New York included charges of passport fraud, conspiracy to commit a murder-for-hire and conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign country.
When Brent Sikkema was killed, he was in the process of stepping back from the daily operations of his gallery and spending more time with his teenage son. He had been drawn to Rio de Janeiro for many years as a getaway, describing his apartment there as a true urban “oasis.”
As Brazilian police turned their attention to Daniel Sikkema last year, his Brazilian lawyer, Fabiana Marques, said Mr. Sikkema was “shocked” by the accusations.
Born with the name Daniel García Carrera, Mr. Sikkema arrived in the United States after a difficult childhood in Cuba and a period working as a male escort in Spain, experiences that he chronicled in a 2006 autobiography called “Ticket to Paradise.” Over the last few months, he posted YouTube videos in which he provided tour guide information on New York.
Shortly after the gallerist’s body was found in January 2024, Mr. Sikkema posted a photograph of a black rose on social media with a note written in Spanish to express his grief: “Our son and I cry for you without tears, we cry for you in the way that hurts the most.”
