Did disputes lead about “open marriage” and custody of children to the murder of a rich art dealer?

Federal prosecutors claim that the foreign spouse of a millionaire art dealer conspired to get him killed in Brazil over a dispute over custody, after the couple’s partnership reportedly began to acidify his proposal, they persecute an open marriage.

Brent Sikkema, 75, an art dealer with several millionaires from New York, killed In his Rio de Janeiro home January 14, 2024. His foreign spouse, 54-year-old Daniel Sikkema, has now been accused of conspiracy for committing murder-rent, the The Ministry of Justice announced This week.

Daniel was originally accused by the Brazilian authorities, who had requested an Interpol warning when he had left the country then, per illegal death goal submitted against the defendant in the New York State Supreme Court.

The accusation came after Triana Prevez acknowledged the murder, claiming he was hired to carry out the killing, local newspaper S.Paulo folha and The world reported last year; Sheet Reported Daniel was appointed to the main memory in the case.

Now, the US authorities claim that Daniel began to plot the murder as early as 2023 and paid an attacker, identified by prosecutors only as “CC-1”, $ 200,000 to commit the murder. He made the payments alleged with a stolen identity.

Brent knife -cut 18 times in the face and chest, according to the incorrect death commission that was reviewed by humans.

The couple’s marriage seems to have taken a decline a few years before the murder. The executor of Brent’s estate claimed in 2019 Daniel proposed the idea of ​​an “open marriage”, which Brent did not want, according to the complaint.

This caused their marriage to “deteriorate”, according to the complaint, and in 2022 Daniel applied for divorce.

Things just went further down from there.

In the complaint, Brent’s executor Daniel accuses Daniel of trying to steal $ 200,000 from his widow’s bank account and later disappear for weeks with the couple’s children and a suitcase full of cash; He claimed that they moved to Cuba before he eventually resumed in New York because they needed money.

The executor even accused Daniel of framing Brent for a false plot of committing mass murder on John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York; Brent was arrested by the police in a holding cell for almost 24 hours until it was released due to lack of evidence.

Daniel’s lawyer Nicholas Kaizer denied the charges to humans.

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Daniel would later demand full custody of the child and $ 6,000,000 from his millionaire ex, but Brent rejected both requirements according to the complaint.

Daniel has been accused of a count of conspiracy for committing a murder-by-rent, a count of murder-rent, a count of conspiracy to murder a person in a foreign county and a bill of passport fraud, according to the DOJ statement .

Daniel has not relied on the charges, Kaizer says.

If you experience home violence, call the national hotline for home violence at 1-800-799-7233, or go to Thehotline.org. All calls are free of charge and confidential. The threat line is available around the clock in more than 170 languages.