U.S. judge wrongly ordered Stanford jailed: filing

Texas billionaire Allen Stanford gives members of the media a thumbs up as he leaves the Bob Casey Federal courthouse in the custody of U.S. Marshals in Houston June 29, 2009.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Allen Stanford was wrongly jailed by a federal judge who relied on inaccurate statements from federal prosecutors and ignored evidence showing the Texas financier is not a flight risk, lawyers for Stanford wrote in a appeal.

Stanford was initially granted bail by a U.S. magistrate judge after his arrest on June 18.

But prosecutors successfully argued that the billionaire, who is accused of perpetrating a $7 billion fraud, was a flight risk and the release order was revoked by U.S. District Judge David Hittner.

"As a matter of law, the district court erred in reversing the magistrate judge's order, and as a result, a 59-year-old man accused primarily of financial crimes sits in jail and cannot effectively meet with his lawyers or otherwise prepare for his defense," Stanford's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, wrote in a 46-page appeal filed with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Monday.

The evidence as a whole does not support the conclusion that Stanford is a flight risk and prosecutors made inaccurate statements to Hittner regarding the whereabouts of the financier's passport and his ties to the community, according to the filing.

Stanford is awaiting trial in a federal detention center about 40 miles north of Houston.

The appeal, USA v. Robert Stanford, is with the federal appeals court in New Orleans, case no. 09-20444.

(Reporting by Anna Driver; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)