A former prostitute has been found guilty of hiring a hitman to kill his estranged millionaire husband at their vacation home in Brazil to get a bigger slice of his $22 million fortune.

A jury took just a few hours to find Daniel Carrera Sikkema guilty on all three counts over the slaying of Brent Sikkema, a renowned New York gallery owner.

During the trial at Manhattan’s federal court, the jury was told chilling details about the plot, which is said to have begun after Daniel demanded an open marriage and escalated amid a bitter custody battle over their young son Lucas.

The jury found that Daniel hired Alejandro Triana Prevez, a Cuban security guard living in Brazil, to sneak into Brent’s home in Rio de Janeiro in January 2024 and murder him.

Prosecutors told a court that Daniel paid Prevez $10,600 over 11 payments including $5,000 after the murder had been carried out.

The body of Brent, 77, was found the next day by his lawyer in his bedroom with multiple stab wounds.

Prevez, 32, was arrested days later and according to reports in the Brazilian media, confessed to stabbing Brent 18 times in the face, chest and throat.

Weeks later Daniel filed court papers seeking $7 million of Brent’s $22 million estate - seven times the $1 million his estranged husband had offered him.

Daniel, a Cuban American in his mid 50s, denied murder-for-hire resulting in death, conspiracy to murder and maim a person in a foreign country - but the jury convicted him

Brent’s killing rocked New York’s art world where founded the renowned Wooster Gardens gallery in SoHo, which later became Sikkema Jenkins & Co and showcased artists like Kara Walker.

In a post on Instagram from 2016, Brent posed with Michelle Obama with her arm around him and said he was ‘so incredibly proud of this extraordinary woman’.

In a statement after the conviction, Jay Clayton, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: ‘The tragedy of Brent Sikkema’s death now has a meaningful measure of justice as a unanimous jury of New Yorkers has held Daniel Sikkema accountable for this senseless, cold-blooded murder’.

The case has also led to a civil lawsuit in a New York state court by Brent’s estate which is seeking to bar Daniel from inheriting Brent’s money on the grounds that he was responsible for his death.

The civil lawsuit, filed in the Manhattan Supreme Court, stated that the background to the plot was Daniel’s desire to have sex with other people.

It stated that in 2019 he ‘propositioned Brent to have an ‘open marriage’ and to move their family to Cuba (where the couple owned two homes) full-time.

‘After Brent rejected these proposals, their marriage began to deteriorate’.

In 2022, Daniel filed for divorce and attempted to withdraw $200,000 from one of Brent’s accounts using a forged check, the lawsuit states.

After Daniel falsely told police that Brent planned to ‘commit mass murder’ at New York’s JFK airport, Brent was arrested and held in a cell for 22 hours before being released.

The lawsuit states: ‘Defendant’s motive for murdering Brent is self-evident.

‘(Daniel) and Brent were in the midst of a contentious divorce that included disputes over custody of their minor child’, referring to Lucas, who is now 15.

The lawsuit went on: ‘Defendant had no other source of support outside of the sums he received on account of his marriage to Brent.

‘Upon information and belief, (Daniel) would receive more money as a surviving spouse than he would likely receive in a divorce settlement’.

Brent is said to have grown so concerned during 2023 that Daniel would physically harm him, it was claimed.

What happened next was outlined by prosecutors during closing arguments at the federal court in Manhattan this week.

Assistant US Attorney Remy Grosbard said there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Daniel ‘paid someone to take his husband’s life and tried to cover it up’.

Grosbard said that Daniel made 11 payments with some as low as $300 to Prevez, starting in July 2023.

Right before the first installment was paid, Daniel told a friend: ‘I’m still fighting with this old bastard who won’t die, but anyway. I’ll tell you, until he dies or until someone kills him, or until I get divorced, that’s how it’s got to be.'

A few days later, Daniel told a friend: ‘I’m still here with my problems with this s***** old man who won’t die and won’t stop f****** me over but hey, that’s what I have to put up with until I divorce him'.

To cover up the payments to Prevez, Daniel got his close friends to wire the money for him but didn’t tell them what it was for, the prosecutor said.

For four of the later installments, he stole the identity of his former handyman who lived with him for a while and offered the man $3,000 to keep quiet once the plot was exposed.

The jury was told that Prevez took a scouting trip from his home in Sao Paulo to Rio to check out Brent’s home there.

In December 2023 Prevez returned to Rio hoping to kill Brent but it didn’t work out, the court was told.

Around that time Daniel told a friend: ‘He (Brent) can take all the time he wants. Let’s see if instead of getting divorced I end up a widower. It would suit me much better.'

Prosecutors showed the jury chilling surveillance footage of Brent arriving at the home around 9pm on the evening of January 13th 2024.

Then at 3.42am the following day, the footage allegedly showed Prevez arriving and entering the building: the civil lawsuit claims that Daniel gave him a key.

Fourteen minutes later, after allegedly carrying out the murder, Prevez is shown leaving the home.

During the trial the jury was shown grisly photos of the crime scene taken by police.

The images included a bloodstained knife from the kitchen of the home which was said to have been used in the murder, and a disturbing photo of Brent’s body sprawled out on his bed.

Blood could clearly be seen on the sheets in the image, which was taken by police.

In her closing statement, Grosbard told the jury that ‘immediately’ after leaving the house, Prevez called Daniel twice but he didn’t answer.

When Daniel called him back they spoke for eight minutes and then Daniel deactivated the number that Prevez was using, which he had saved in his phone as ‘Raymundo Rodriguez’.

‘When a hitman leaves after a murder you know who he calls, he calls the man who ordered the hit,’ Grosbard said.

The pair carried on texting on another phone and were ‘celebrating the murder’: Daniel is said to have sent Prevez a bunny emoji the day after the killing, and offered to help him escape Brazil to the US.

But instead Prevez was arrested and, according to reports in the Brazilian media, claimed another person was responsible and that he could have been drugged.

Grosbard told the jury that weeks after the slaying, Daniel showed no remorse.

Instead he told a friend: ‘I couldn't care less.

‘He’s (Brent) better off dead. He’s better off dead, I’m telling you.

‘When I go to claim what’s rightfully mine I’m going to be ruthless, absolutely ruthless’.

Daniel then put into effect the final phase of the plot, which Grosbard described as the ‘cash out’.

He began trying to claim Brent’s properties in Brazil including the home where he was murdered, and another property, the jury was told

Daniel said he was going to rent them out long term and ‘sell off Brent’s art’, Grosbard said.

Then Daniel began ‘eyeing some accounts with large sums of money’ and trying to get an advance.

Just two months after Brent’s death, Daniel filed court papers seeking one third of Brent’s estate, or $7 million out of a total of $22 million.

That was seven times as the $1 million Brent had offered Daniel during the divorce, money he was entitled to because they were still married at the time of the murder.

In her closing argument, Grosbard told the jury: ‘The defendant told you in his own words, he was absolutely ruthless and in the aftermath of Brent’s death he carried out the last step of his plan, he cashed in, he went to court to claim what was rightfully his.

‘Millions of dollars from Brent’s estate, far more than the defendant would have got from his divorce.

‘It points to one simple conclusion, the defendant wanted Brent dead and to profit from his death. The defendant hired a hitman to kill Brent and tried to cover it up’.

Prevez did not testify during the trial but Grosbard said there was ‘no dispute’ he killed Brent.

Sikkema’s lawyer, Florian Miedel, told the court that there was no evidence directly linking his client with Prevez.

According to the New York Post, he said: ‘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’.