A suspect in the brutal killing of Brent Sikkema told Brazilian police that the Manhattan art dealer’s husband ordered the hit and offered him $200,000 to complete the job, according to Brazilian newspaper reports.
Alejandro Triana Prevez, 30, alleged to authorities that Daniel Carrera Sikkema, 53, ordered the killing of Brent Sikkema, 75, in January. The gallerist, whose Chelsea firm represented artists Vik Muniz and Kara Walker, among others, was found dead in Rio. de Janeiro row house on Jan. 15 with 18 stab wounds to his face, chest and throat, according to police.
Statements alleging Carrera’s involvement were first reported Thursday by Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, which also reported that Rio’s Public Ministry had demanded that Carrera, who lives in Manhattan with the couple’s 14-year-old son, be immediately remanded in custody.
Carrera was born in Cuba and worked as a prostitute in Havana and Madrid before her marriage to Sikkema 15 years ago, according to a memoir she wrote in the late 1990s about her flight from the Communist island.
Sikkema rubs elbows with the likes of Michelle Obama Instagram/Brent Sikkema
The couple had been embroiled in a protracted divorce battle that began in March 2022 and continued when Sikkema died, according to court records. Carrera allegedly asked for $6 million to allow Sikkema to see the couple’s son, according to Rio police.
Shortly after Carrera filed for divorce in March 2022, she called police alleging that Sikkema had changed the lock on the door to their Chelsea apartment after a heated argument. “When the victim questioned building management, they told him that they had orders not to allow the victim back into the apartment,” according to a report.
Sikkema surrendered to the police on April 14. He was arrested and spent the night in jail, according to sources who did not want to be identified.
Suspect Alejandro Triana Prevez is a Cuban who says Brent Sikkema’s estranged husband ordered the art dealer’s death and promised to pay $200,000. Brazilian Court of Appeal
“Danny just preyed on the police officer, worked him up emotionally to get him to arrest Brent,” said a source who knows the pair. “The whole thing was ridiculous and the district attorney ended up apologizing to Brent.”
According to Triana, a Cuban national who said he used to work for Carrera and Sikkema in Cuba, Carrera sent him via courier a lock to enter Rio Sikkema’s house, Brazilian newspapers reported. Rio police released video footage from a nearby property that they said showed Triana watching Sikkema’s residence in the city’s Botanical Garden neighborhood for 14 hours before the killing before entering the house.
Sikkema’s estranged husband, Daniel Carrera Sikkema, had worked as a prostitute in Havana and Madrid before marrying the gallerist. They have their son, Lucas, as a surrogate. Brent Sikkema/ Instagram
Rio’s Homicide Bureau told reporters they had “no doubt” the crime was planned. In addition to monitoring the victim, the suspect left the air conditioner on “to attract less attention” in the neighborhood during the attack, they said.
Sikkema’s body was found by his old lawyer in Rio the day before he was scheduled to return to Rio de Janeiro.
Brent Sikkema is a popular figure among artists and his neighbors in the Rio Botanic Garden neighborhood. Instagram/Brent Sikkema
Days before he was killed, Sikkema closed on another Rio de Janeiro property. The gallerist owns three properties in Cuba and two in Rio, where he spends several weeks a year.
On the Thursday before her death, she was shopping for furniture and curtains for her new apartment, and told her driver she had fallen in love with a new boyfriend, according to a Rio Civil Police report obtained by The Post last week.
“In the passenger seat of the car, Brent spoke in a video chat with a man who spoke halting English,” read the report, which summarized the witness statement of Luiz Otavio Martins, Sikkema’s longtime driver in Rio. “The driver can see the young man in the video call. He was dark and very handsome, and Brent told him ‘I love you’ in English.”
Police in Brazil arrested Alejandro Triana Prevez for the brutal murder of Brent Sikkema last month REUTERS A Rio medical examiner’s diagram shows multiple stab wounds that killed Manhattan gallery owner Brent Sikkema at his home in the beachfront city last month. Brazilian Court of Appeal
During his last conversation with Martins, Brent told his driver he was going on a date, the report said, adding that Brent frequented the Rio bathhouse to pick up young male prostitutes.
“He prefers them young,” a Rio police report quoted the driver as saying.
“The driver told Brent not to bring prostitutes to his apartment because it was too dangerous,” the police report said. “Brent told the driver that he had met a man before Christmas and was in love.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
