Daniel Sikkema, the estranged husband of New York City art dealer Brent Sikkema, was convicted Friday in federal court in Manhattan for his role in the 2024 killing of his husband in Brazil, prosecutors said. Federal prosecutors said the case stemmed from contentious divorce proceedings and involved efforts to arrange a death through the man authorities identified as the alleged hitman.
The conviction carries a mandatory life sentence, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Brent Sikkema was found stabbed to death in his Rio de Janeiro townhouse in January 2024, and Daniel Sikkema was arrested in April 2024, federal prosecutors said. The jury’s guilty verdict followed a trial focused on the communications and payments prosecutors said linked Daniel Sikkema to the planned killing.
Prosecutors said the defendant used a burner phone line to order the killing. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the prosecution had proved that Daniel Sikkema ordered the killing “amid contentious divorce proceedings with his then-husband” and did so using a burner phone line, calling it “callously” ordering the death.
Clayton described Brent Sikkema’s death as a “senseless, cold-blooded murder” and said the verdict gives what he called a “meaningful measure of justice.” In the government’s presentation to the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Pavlis told jurors that Daniel Sikkema funneled more than $10,000 to the alleged hitman and promised additional money, according to the record summarized by the Associated Press.
Prosecutors also told jurors that Daniel Sikkema stayed in contact with the alleged hitman before and after Brent Sikkema was killed. They said Daniel Sikkema bragged to others that he expected to get more money from Brent Sikkema’s death than he would have received in a divorce, and that the couple had a teenage son.
Daniel Sikkema’s lawyer, Florian Miedel, told jurors in an opening statement that the case depended on circumstantial evidence and that there was no evidence to prove the defendant’s guilt, according to the AP summary. After the verdict, Miedel said the defense was disappointed and plans to appeal, adding, “Daniel is staying strong and hopes to be vindicated in the end.”
The trial’s focus on the alleged communications and payments marked a continuation of the case’s earlier courtroom stages, after MSI previously reported on the start of the murder-for-hire trial in Brent Sikkema’s stabbing death in Brazil. As the case moves toward sentencing, the conviction and the expected mandatory life term leave the appeal as the next major step in Daniel Sikkema’s challenge to the federal government’s evidence.