American officers introduced expenses on Tuesday accusing a New York man of hiring successful man to kill his husband, Brent Sikkema, a outstanding artwork vendor, in Brazil amid their contentious divorce proceedings.
The appearing head of the U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, stated in a press release that the actions of the person, Daniel Sikkema had been “a cold-blooded plot to homicide.”
Mr. Sikkema, 54, was arrested and appeared in court docket on Tuesday, in line with federal officers. If convicted, he faces a compulsory penalty of life in jail or dying.
Richard Levitt, a lawyer representing Mr. Sikkema, stated in an electronic mail that his shopper “now as all the time maintains his innocence and appears ahead to his full vindication at trial.”
In January 2024, Brazilian authorities discovered Brent Sikkema’s physique with 18 stab wounds inside his Rio de Janeiro house, stunning the artwork world. By his gallery, which is now referred to as Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, Mr. Sikkema, 75, had spent his profession championing artists together with Kara Walker, Jeffrey Gibson and Vik Muniz. (Gibson went on to signify the USA on the Venice Biennale.)
After investigators recovered surveillance footage that they stated confirmed Brent Sikkema’s former bodyguard, a 30-year-old man named Alejandro Triana Prevez, coming into and exiting the house, a manhunt resulted in Mr. Prevez’s arrest.
In keeping with a superseding indictment that was unsealed on Tuesday, Daniel Sikkema organized a collection of funds to the hit man, typically by means of different individuals, earlier than the killing and organized a $5,000 cost afterward, promising extra cost later. The indictment doesn’t title Mr. Prevez however notes that the suspect, whom it refers to as CC-1, was arrested on Jan. 18, 2024, the identical day that Mr. Prevez was.
In March, Mr. Sikkema was arrested in Manhattan and charged with one depend of passport fraud, resulting in issues that he was planning to flee the nation. Across the identical time, a Brazilian decide was calling for his extradition to face arrest within the nation.
The superseding indictment in New York included expenses of passport fraud, conspiracy to commit a murder-for-hire and conspiracy to homicide an individual in another country.
When Brent Sikkema was killed, he was within the technique of stepping again from the every day operations of his gallery and spending extra time along with his teenage son. He had been drawn to Rio de Janeiro for a few years as a getaway, describing his house there as a real city “oasis.”
As Brazilian police turned their consideration to Daniel Sikkema final 12 months, his Brazilian lawyer, Fabiana Marques, stated Mr. Sikkema was “shocked” by the accusations.
Born with the title Daniel García Carrera, Mr. Sikkema arrived in the USA after a troublesome childhood in Cuba and a interval working as a male escort in Spain, experiences that he chronicled in a 2006 autobiography referred to as “Ticket to Paradise.” Over the previous few months, he posted YouTube movies by which he supplied tour information info on New York.
Shortly after the gallerist’s physique was present in January 2024, Mr. Sikkema posted {a photograph} of a black rose on social media with a word written in Spanish to precise his grief: “Our son and I cry for you with out tears, we cry for you in the way in which that hurts essentially the most.”
