The former husband of the late New York art dealer Brent Sikkema, Daniel Sikkema, aged 56, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for organising Sikkema’s murder in 2024. A federal court in Manhattan handed down the sentence on Wednesday (4 November).
In May 2026, after a two-week trial, Daniel Sikkema was convicted on charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country. In addition to life imprisonment, he was sentenced to five years of supervised release.
Brent Sikkema, who was aged 75 at the time of his murder, was found stabbed to death at his home in the Jardim Botânico neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 15 January 2024. According to prosecutors, Daniel Sikkema began planning the murder in 2023 in the midst of his divorce from the dealer, with whom he had been married for around 15 years and shared a son.
As the couple’s divorce proceedings became more acrimonious, Daniel Sikkema, who holds dual US and Cuban citizenship, recruited the Cuban national, Alejandro Triana Prevez, as the hitman. On the night of the murder, Prevez entered the late Sikkema’s residence and stabbed him 18 times. Prevez subsequently received $5,000 from Daniel Sikkema and was promised further payments.
Prosecutors said Daniel Sikkema made 11 payments to Prevez and Prevez’s partner in Cuba, using the identities of unwitting friends, employees and family members to conceal the transactions. Prevez was arrested by Brazilian authorities four days after the murder at a gas station on the side of the highway in the state of Minas Gerais, around 600 miles from Rio de Janeiro. He had stolen cash and jewellery in his possession. His case is being handled separately by a Brazilian court.
Brent Sikkema was born in 1948 in Morrison, Illinois, and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute before beginning his career. In the early 1990s, he founded Wooster Gardens in SoHo, moving the gallery to Chelsea in 1999. The business became Sikkema Jenkins & Co in 2003 following the involvement of Michael Jenkins and Meg Malloy.
The gallery is now known as Sikkema Malloy Jenkins and continues to operate in Chelsea. It has championed the work of artists including Kara Walker, Vik Muniz, Sheila Hicks, Jeffrey Gibson and Arturo Herrera. A representative for Sikkema Malloy Jenkins told The Art Newspaper that the gallery will not be providing any statement regarding the conviction or sentencing.