Cuban man arrested in Brazil for the killing of NYC art gallery owner Brent Sikkema tells police billionaire’s estranged husband offered him $200,000 to carry out the murder

The suspect arrested for the murder of New York art gallery owner Brent Sikkema told Rio de Janeiro authorities that the billionaire’s estranged husband allegedly ordered him to carry out the killing, Brazilian channel TV Globo revealed Friday .

Cuban national Alejandro Triana, 30, told investigators that Daniel Sikkema offered him $200,000 to kill the 75-year-old founder of Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Triana is accused of intentional murder. Authorities initially investigated the incident as a robbery after arresting him in possession of $30,000, but Triana told police he never took anything to Brent Sikkema’s home.

Civilian police and the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office have filed a warrant for Daniel Sikkema’s arrest in state court and have been in contact with the U.S. Department of Justice.

A Rio de Janeiro spokesperson confirmed in an email to DailyMail.com on Friday that the Capital Homicide Police Department completed its investigation on Thursday and that Daniel Sikkema has been identified as an “intellectual and lead author interested in crime.”

DailyMail.com contacted the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs and the New York Police Department for comment.

Brazilian authorities have filed a petition in a Rio de Janeiro court seeking the arrest of Daniel Sikkema (left), the estranged husband of late New York City art gallery owner Brent Sikkema.

Triana told police that Daniel Sikkema did not agree with the amount of money offered to him in the divorce settlement and that he was concerned that Brent Sikkema’s relationship with “a Uruguayan or a Paraguayan” man could influence how the couple’s assets were to be divided.

Triana, who met the couple in Cuba and worked for them as a handyman at their properties on the communist island, also told police that Daniel Sikkema was angry because Brent Sikkema was “spending a lot of money on drugs, parties and prostitutes.”

Surveillance camera footage obtained by DailyMail.com from Gabriel Security Company showed that Triana began monitoring Brent Sikkema’s home in Rio de Janeiro’s Jardim Botânico neighborhood on January 13 around 2:30 p.m.

He entered the house on January 14 at 3:43 a.m. with a key that Daniel Sikkema allegedly sent him from the United States.

Triana was able to leave the house at 3:47 a.m. and remove gloves before driving away.

Simone Nunes, a lawyer and friend of Brent Sikkema who was looking after the property while he was away from Brazil, discovered him dead on January 15 after visiting the house because she was concerned that he was not answering her calls and text messages .

Daniel Sikkema and Brent Sikkema with their son, who is now 12 years old

Brent Sikkema, co-owner of the contemporary art gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, said friends in Brazil were trying to finalize a divorce with his husband Daniel Sikkema

An autopsy report showed that Triana had stabbed Brent Sikkema 18 times, mostly in the neck and chest. He was arrested on January 15 after police found him sleeping in a car in Ureaba, a city in the southern state of Minas Gerais, which borders Bolivia.

Triana initially told investigators he was not involved in Brent Sikkema’s murder just days after his arrest, but subsequently confessed after meeting with his defense team and police in late January and finding authorities had sufficient evidence that linked him to the gruesome murder.

Brent Sikkema was born in Morrison, Illinois, and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute.

He was director of exhibitions at Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester in 1971 and then was director of Vision Gallery in Boston from 1976 to 1980 and was its owner from 1980 to 1989.

Brent Sikkema, a prominent New York City art gallery owner, with former First Lady Michelle Obama

Brent was seen on a security camera walking back to his home in Rio de Janeiro at 4:36 PM on January 13, before he was allegedly killed by Cuban national Alejandro Triana.

Alejandro Triana was captured on camera leaving New York art gallery owner Brent Sikkema’s Rio de Janeiro home at 3:57 a.m. on January 14. Sikkema was found dead on January 15

He founded his art gallery in 1991 as Wooster Gardens in Soho. In 1999, the art gallery was moved to its current location in Chelsea.

Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo Brent Sikkema told friends that Rio de Janeiro was so safe that he didn’t mind leaving the door open.

But he confided he was disappointed his husband wouldn’t agree to an amicable divorce because he was looking for $6 million.

Friends of the art gallery owner told news channel Daniel Sikkema that he had issued a court order preventing him from seeing their 12-year-old son.

Brent Sikkema reportedly spent a night in a New York City jail after disobeying the order.