In a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, a former sex worker accused of plotting to have his Chelsea art-dealer husband murdered showed no reaction as prosecutors presented jurors with graphic images of the victim’s bloodied body.
Daniel Carrera Sikkema, dressed in a gray blazer and white shirt, remained stoic during the opening statements of his trial. Prosecutors revealed photographs of his older estranged husband, Brent Sikkema, who was found with multiple stab wounds following his January 2024 murder in Rio de Janeiro.
Federal prosecutors claim that Sikkema, in his mid-50s, hired Cuban national Alejandro Triana Prevez to break into the 77-year-old art dealer’s Brazilian apartment and carry out the fatal stabbing. This occurred amid a contentious divorce and custody battle over the couple’s young son.
“In the year 2024, Brent Sikkema was brutally murdered,” Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Pavlis stated to the jury. “A hitman entered his home in Brazil and repeatedly stabbed Brent.”
Following the murder, the killer “immediately made a phone call,” Pavlis noted. “Who did he call? He called that man, Daniel Sikkema, the one who hired and compensated him to murder Brent.”
Pavlis further alleged that the defendant “masterminded his husband’s murder from across the globe,” driven by the belief he would gain financially as a widower rather than through divorce proceedings.
“He didn’t want a divorce. He wanted Brent dead,” the prosecutor said.
Sikkema allegedly funneled thousands of dollars to Prevez and people close to him through a web of intermediaries that included a housekeeper, her daughter, a handyman and even the suspect’s romantic partner.
“The defendant paid the hitman every step of the way, making payment after payment after payment,” Pavlis said.
Authorities said Prevez was arrested by Brazilian police just days after the slaying and later confessed to stabbing Brent Sikkema 18 times in the face, chest and throat.
At Tuesday’s trial, prosecutors quoted a series of voice notes they said Sikkema sent to friends and relatives during the couple’s divorce.
“It won’t be over until this man passes away,” Sikkema said in one of the recordings, according to Pavlis.
The suspect said in another, “I’m still fighting with this old bastard who won’t die,” the prosecutor said.
Sikkema’s lawyer, Florian Miedel, acknowledged there was “no dispute” that Prevez stabbed Brent Sikkema 18 times inside the Rio home — but insisted prosecutors had no direct proof linking his client to the murder.
“Daniel did not hire Alejandro to kill Brent,” Miedel told jurors.
“No one is going to come into this courtroom and say Daniel did it. No one is going to come into this courtroom and say, ‘I have personal knowledge that Daniel hired Alejandro to do it.’ ”
The trial’s first witness, family friend Angela Liriano, testified that Daniel Sikkema complained repeatedly about money during the divorce.
“He was saying that he felt he wasn’t getting enough money,” Liriano testified. “ ‘Six million is not enough — I want $8 million.’ ”
She also recalled a chilling phone conversation she had with Sikkema while at work.
“I told him, ‘Brent was just here. He told me he was going to Brazil.’ [Sikkema] said he wished [Brent] will die.
“I was in shock.”
