The previous husband of the late New York artwork seller Brent Sikkema, Daniel Sikkema, aged 56, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for organising Sikkema’s homicide in 2024. A federal court docket in Manhattan handed down the sentence on Wednesday (4 November).
In Could 2026, after a two-week trial, Daniel Sikkema was convicted on fees of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit homicide abroad. Along with life imprisonment, he was sentenced to 5 years of supervised launch.
Brent Sikkema, who was aged 75 on the time of his homicide, was discovered stabbed to loss of life at his dwelling within the Jardim Botânico neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 15 January 2024. Based on prosecutors, Daniel Sikkema started planning the homicide in 2023 within the midst of his divorce from the seller, with whom he had been married for round 15 years and shared a son.
Because the couple’s divorce proceedings turned extra acrimonious, Daniel Sikkema, who holds twin US and Cuban citizenship, recruited the Cuban nationwide, Alejandro Triana Prevez, because the hitman. On the night time of the homicide, Prevez entered the late Sikkema’s residence and stabbed him 18 instances. Prevez subsequently acquired $5,000 from Daniel Sikkema and was promised additional funds.
Prosecutors mentioned Daniel Sikkema made 11 funds to Prevez and Prevez’s companion in Cuba, utilizing the identities of unwitting mates, workers and members of the family to hide the transactions. Prevez was arrested by Brazilian authorities 4 days after the homicide at a fuel station on the facet of the freeway within the state of Minas Gerais, round 600 miles from Rio de Janeiro. He had stolen money and jewelry in his possession. His case is being dealt with individually by a Brazilian court docket.
Brent Sikkema was born in 1948 in Morrison, Illinois, and studied on the San Francisco Artwork Institute earlier than starting his profession. Within the early Nineteen Nineties, he based Wooster Gardens in SoHo, shifting the gallery to Chelsea in 1999. The enterprise turned Sikkema Jenkins & Co in 2003 following the involvement of Michael Jenkins and Meg Malloy.
The gallery is now often known as Sikkema Malloy Jenkins and continues to function in Chelsea. It has championed the work of artists together with Kara Walker, Vik Muniz, Sheila Hicks, Jeffrey Gibson and Arturo Herrera. A consultant for Sikkema Malloy Jenkins informed The Artwork Newspaper that the gallery won’t be offering any assertion relating to the conviction or sentencing.
