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Daniel García Carrera, known as Daniel Sikkema, appeared this Tuesday before a federal court in Manhattan without displaying any emotion as prosecutors showed the jury photographs of the body of his husband, the prominent art dealer Brent Sikkema, who was stabbed to death in January 2024 in Rio de Janeiro.
According to The New York Post, the accused, a Cuban man in his 55s residing in New York, faces charges of conspiracy and hired murder. The prosecution alleges that he hired fellow Cuban Alejandro Triana Prevez to infiltrate the apartment of 77-year-old Brent Sikkema and kill him while the couple was going through a bitter divorce and custody dispute over their child.
Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Pavlis described in his opening statement how Triana, the victim's former bodyguard, watched the home for 14 hours, entered at 3:43 a.m. on January 14, 2024, and stabbed the art dealer 18 times in the face, neck, and chest.
"In 2024, Brent Sikkema was brutally murdered. A hitman broke into his home in Brazil, took a knife, and stabbed Brent over and over again," Pavlis said before the jury.
According to the accusation, after committing the crime, Triana immediately called Daniel Sikkema. "Who did he call? He called that man, Daniel Sikkema, the man who hired him and paid him to kill Brent," stated the prosecutor.
The prosecution alleges that the motive was financial. Daniel believed he would receive more money as a widower than through a divorce. "He didn't want a divorce. He wanted Brent to be dead," Pavlis stated.
To channel the payments to the hitman, the accused allegedly used a network of intermediaries that included a housekeeper, his daughter, a collaborator, and his own romantic partner. "The accused paid the hitman at every step of the way, payment after payment after payment," the prosecutor noted.
The prosecutors also presented voice recordings that Daniel Sikkema allegedly sent to friends and family during the separation process. In one of them, he said: "It won't end until this man dies." In another: "I keep fighting with this old bastard who doesn't want to die."
The first witness in the trial, Angela Liriano, a friend of the family, testified that Daniel constantly complained about money. "He said he felt he wasn't receiving enough. 'Six million isn't enough, I want eight million,'" Liriano testified.
Liriano also recounted a troubling phone call: "I told him, 'Brent was here. He told me he was going to Brazil.' [Daniel] said he wished [Brent] would die. I was in shock."
Triana was arrested three days after the crime at a gas station in the state of Minas Gerais, carrying $3,000, and confessed to committing the murder. The Brazilian justice system ordered the arrest of Daniel Sikkema in February 2024 and issued an alert through Interpol.
The United States Department of Justice formally charged Daniel Sikkema in February 2025 in the Southern District of New York.
The defense, led by attorney Florian Miedel, acknowledged that Triana stabbed Brent 18 times, but denied any direct connection to his client. "Daniel did not hire Alejandro to kill Brent. No one is going to come into this room and say that Daniel did it," Miedel argued.
If found guilty, Daniel García Carrera faces mandatory life imprisonment or the death penalty.
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