A federal judge gave Daniel Sikkema life in prison for paying a hitman to kill his estranged husband, New York art dealer Brent Sikkema, in Brazil during their bitter divorce.
Story Highlights
- A federal jury in Manhattan found Sikkema guilty on May 22, 2026, of murder-for-hire and two related conspiracy charges
- The judge sentenced him to life in prison on Wednesday, November 4, plus five years of supervised release
- Prosecutors said the killing was “driven by greed” and came while the couple’s divorce dragged on
- Prosecutors say Sikkema sent eleven payments tied to the plot and used other people’s names to hide the money
- The hired killer, Alejandro Prevez, stabbed Brent Sikkema 18 times at his Rio de Janeiro home in January 2024
- The hired killer was a former security guard for the couple, according to reports.
Daniel Sikkema Sentenced To Life In Prison For Murder-For-Hire Of His New York Art Gallerist Husband In Brazil @SDNYnews
Read more at: https://t.co/RFINXOugrR pic.twitter.com/8OW3F5npth
— FBI New York (@NewYorkFBI) November 4, 2026
Life Sentence Caps Federal Case In Husband’s Murder
On Wednesday, November 4, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos sentenced Daniel Sikkema, 56, of New York City, to life in prison for arranging the murder of his husband, Brent Sikkema. The judge also ordered five years of supervised release, which is a period of court monitoring that follows a prison term. Brent Sikkema, 75, owned a well-known Manhattan art gallery and often stayed in Brazil. He was stabbed to death at a home he owned in Rio de Janeiro on January 14, 2024.
Prosecutors said money was the motive. The two men were going through a contentious divorce when the plot began in 2023. At trial, prosecutors said Sikkema expected to gain more from his husband’s death than from a split. “For months, the defendant manipulated friends, family, and employees to execute a killing driven by greed,” said Jamie McDonald, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the federal prosecutors’ office in Manhattan.
What The Jury Found
A federal jury convicted Sikkema on May 22, 2026, after a two-week trial. Jurors found him guilty on three counts: murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country. Murder-for-hire is the federal crime of paying, or promising to pay, someone to kill another person. It falls under U.S. law when phones, money transfers or travel across borders are used to set up the killing, even when the killing itself happens overseas.
Sikkema’s lawyer, Florian Miedel, told jurors the case rested on circumstantial evidence, meaning proof that points to guilt without a direct eyewitness to the plot. “Life is messy. The truth is not always obvious,” he said. The jury rejected that argument. The FBI worked the case with Brazilian authorities.
Prosecutors Traced Eleven Payments And A Secret Phone
Prosecutors said Sikkema, who holds both U.S. and Cuban citizenship, agreed in 2023 to pay Alejandro Prevez to kill his husband. Prevez was a former security guard for the couple, according to reports. Sikkema sent eleven payments to Prevez and to a romantic interest of Prevez’s in Cuba, prosecutors said. To hide where the money came from, he used the names of friends, employees and family members who did not know about the plan.
Minutes after the killing, Prevez called Sikkema several times on a secret phone number the two had set up to talk about the plot, according to prosecutors. Soon after, Sikkema secretly sent Prevez $5,000 and promised more money to come. At trial, prosecutors presented witness accounts, financial records and location data to show how the plan unfolded before and after the murder.
Brazilian police arrested Prevez on January 18, 2024, four days after the killing. His case is still pending in Brazilian courts, prosecutors said. Daniel Sikkema, who lived in New York City, was tried in federal court in Manhattan.
Why This Case Matters
The case shows that a killing planned from the United States can be punished here, even when it happens thousands of miles away. Investigators followed the money, traced the calls and put the facts in front of a jury. “A cold, calculated murder-for-hire plot,” was how McDonald described the crime.
The sentence means Sikkema will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the death of the man he married. For the family and friends of Brent Sikkema, the case in U.S. court has reached its sentence. The man accused of carrying out the stabbing still faces the courts in Brazil.
Sources:
justice.gov, bnonews.com, hyperallergic.com, artnews.com, nypost.com, nbcnews.com
