A federal judge in New York sentenced the Cuban Daniel García Carrera, known as Daniel Sikkema, to life in prison on Wednesday, November 4, for orchestrating the contract killing of his husband, the acclaimed American gallerist Brent Sikkema, during a contentious divorce process.
The sentence was issued by Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York, according to the United States Department of Justice. The defendant, 56 years old, also received five years of supervised release.
The Cuban was found guilty on May 22, after a two-week trial, of murder for hire, conspiracy to commit that crime, and conspiracy to murder a person abroad.
The crime occurred on January 14, 2024, when Alejandro Triana Prevez, also Cuban and a former bodyguard of the victim, entered the residence of the gallery owner in Rio de Janeiro and stabbed him 18 times.
According to the evidence presented during the trial, minutes after the murder, Triana called García Carrera several times on a secret number that they had both agreed to use for communicating about the plan.
Shortly after, Daniel transferred him 5,000 dollars, with the promise of making additional payments.
The investigation found that García Carrera began to plan the murder in 2023, while going through a dispute over divorce and custody of the child he shared with Brent.
The prosecution argued that the motive was financial: the gallery owner had excluded him from his will and rejected a separation agreement for six million dollars. Daniel believed he would receive more money as a widower than through a divorce.
To fund the crime, he made 11 transfers to the hitman and to a person with whom he had a romantic relationship in Cuba, using the identities of friends, family, and employees who were unaware of the true purpose of the money.
According to investigations, the Cuban had promised to pay $200,000 for the murder, although the amounts that were actually delivered amounted to around $9,000.
During the trial, recordings were also presented in which García Carrera expressed his frustration with the separation process.
"It won't end until this man dies," he stated in one of them. In another, he expressed, "I'm still fighting with this old bastard who doesn't want to die."
Federal prosecutor Jamie McDonald described the case as a premeditated contract murder driven by greed, highlighting that the accused manipulated individuals in his circle for months to carry out the plan.
García Carrera was born in Esmeralda, Camagüey, in 1970. After several failed attempts to leave Cuba, he emigrated to Spain in 1998 and later settled in the United States, where he married Brent Sikkema in 2013.
Her husband was a recognized figure in New York's contemporary art scene. He founded a gallery in 1991 and represented artists such as Kara Walker and Vik Muniz. After his death, the space adopted the name Sikkema Malloy Jenkins.
In turn, Triana Prevez was arrested on January 18, 2024, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. His judicial process continues in Brazil, where he is scheduled to face trial on February 25, 2027, accused of aggravated homicide and robbery.
In the sentencing hearing, Judge Ramos acknowledged that there may have been true love between the couple, but he found the evidence demonstrating García Carrera's responsibility in the murder of her husband to be compelling, according to the American newspaper The New York Post.
Despite the conviction, García Carrera maintains his innocence and intends to appeal the ruling, as reported by The New York Post. During the trial, his defense argued that Brent Sikkema had died during a robbery and denied that there was sufficient evidence to prove that their client ordered the murder.
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