The murder-for-hire trial of Daniel Sikkema opened in Manhattan on Tuesday with testimony from a witness who described his reaction when she told him his estranged husband was going to Brazil, where prosecutors say art dealer Brent Sikkema was later killed.
Angela Liriano, a retired pharmacist, testified as the first witness for the government. She said she was shocked at the way Sikkema spoke about his estranged husband when she told him that she heard Brent Sikkema was going to Brazil.
Liriano told the federal jury about a December 2023 phone conversation, saying Daniel Sikkema replied: “Oh, well I truly hope that he’s dead, that he dies,” according to her testimony.
Prosecutors told jurors that Brent Sikkema, 75, was found stabbed 18 times in his Rio de Janeiro townhouse about a month later. They said an alleged hitman was arrested in Brazil and remains jailed there.
The government’s case focuses on Daniel Sikkema’s alleged role in arranging the killing. Prosecutors said Daniel Sikkema, 55, a U.S. and Cuban citizen who lived in New York, was arrested in April 2024 and held without bail on federal murder-for-hire charges alleging he arranged the killing.
In opening statements, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Pavlis said the government would rely on witness testimony plus digital and financial records and location data. Pavlis told the jury the evidence will show Daniel Sikkema was in frequent contact with the alleged hitman before and after the killing.
Pavlis also said Daniel Sikkema funneled over $10,000 to the man and promised more money was coming, while bragging to others that he would get more money from Brent Sikkema’s death than he would have gotten from a divorce. Pavlis told jurors they would also see Sikkema tell lies to the FBI in a recorded interview after the killing.
Florian Miedel, the defense attorney, urged jurors to be cautious about drawing conclusions from circumstantial evidence. He told jurors to be aware of “assumptions, suggestions, inferences that prosecutors will ask you to draw,” and said there was no evidence to prove his client’s guilt.
Miedel said “Life is messy. The truth is not always obvious,” and argued that people can say extreme things amid a contentious divorce. He also told the jury his client was raising a 13-year-old son with Brent Sikkema and would never take a parent away from the child.
Miedel said there was no evidence Daniel Sikkema knew before the killing that he would be better off financially with Brent Sikkema’s death than with a divorce. He also told jurors not to hold it against his client if he chooses not to testify.
Liriano, who said she grew close to the couple through her work, testified that she accompanied them on a 2018 trip to Cuba. She said Daniel Sikkema showed her around and was “very nice, always.”
She also testified that after the couple separated in 2022 and prepared to divorce, Daniel Sikkema complained he was not getting enough money and wanted $8 million rather than $6 million he might receive, setting up context for the government’s portrayal of the alleged motive.
The prosecution and defense both framed the case around a breakup that involved money disputes and, prosecutors say, led to a killing carried out in Brazil. Brent Sikkema had amassed a multimillion-dollar estate and co-owned a Manhattan contemporary art gallery that later became Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, which says it has represented artists including Kara Walker, Vik Muniz and Arturo Herrera for nearly 30 years.