HOUSTON (Texas) - TEXAN cricket mogul and billionaire financier Allen Stanford is a 'serious flight risk' and must remain in jail until his multi-billion dollar fraud case comes to trial, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

'Stanford is a serious flight risk and there is no condition or combination of conditions of pretrial release that will reasonably assure his appearance as required for trial,' Judge David Hittner wrote.

He ordered Stanford to be detained in a corrections facility separate from people who have already been convicted of crimes.

'We are very disappointed and we will appeal,' Stanford's lawyer Dick DeGuerin said in a statement.

It was a humiliating climbdown for the flamboyant Texan, who sports the clipped mustache and Savile Row style of English aristocracy and has insisted he is innocent of the charges and determined to stand and fight.

In arguments before the judge, Mr DeGuerin said his client would have fled by now if that was his intention and, moreover, all his assets have been seized by the government. 'He's broke,' he told the court. 'They even took his underwear.'

Mr Hittner wrote that he based the decision upon 'Stanford's longstanding ties to a country other than the United States... his access to an international network and financial resources, his familiarity with global travel and the severity of the punishment he may be subjected to if convicted.'

Stanford faces up to 375 years in jail if convicted on 21 charges of multi-billion-dollar fraud, money-laundering and obstruction.

'This was the worst possible outcome for Mr. Stanford,' said Mr Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyer who now works for the Pennsylvania firm Shulman Rogers. 'While an appeals court will give deference to the trial court judge's decision, there is a reasonable chance that the decision will be reversed and Mr. Stanford will get bail,' Mr Frenkel told AFP. 'If not, he sits in jail until trial, and, if convicted, will never get out.'

Stanford has the right to go to trial within 90 days, but his lawyers could waive that right if they don't think they'll have adequate time to prepare a defense. - AFP.