Cricket mogul Stanford sent to US prison hospital

Financier and cricket mogul Allen Stanford was sent to a US prison hospital for drug addiction treatment so he can be fit to stand trial on charges of running a $7 billion fraud, officials said Tuesday.

A federal bureau of prisons website listed Stanford's status as "in transit."

The flamboyant Texan was declared incompetent to stand trial last month after government psychiatrists and Stanford's team testified that he was suffering from bouts of delirium linked to his dependency on powerful anti-anxiety medication.

They found the 60-year-old was also depressed due to a brain injury he sustained during a 2009 jailhouse brawl, and recommended he be weaned off the drug.

US District Judge David Hittner denied Stanford's request to be released and treated at a private medical facility because he is considered a flight risk.

The judge recommended that Stanford be sent to a medical center at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, where Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff is currently serving a 150-year term for defrauding investors of $20 billion.

Stanford has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of fraud, money laundering and obstruction. He faces up to 375 years in jail if convicted.

A self-described "maverick," Stanford hit international sports headlines by creating the eponymous Stanford Super Series Twenty20 cricket competition.

The $20-million winner-take-all match appalled many in the cricket world by challenging the sacrosanct traditional cricket establishment.

In Antigua, he was a larger-than-life figure, the island's largest employer and the recipient of a 2006 knighthood. But after the allegations against him surfaced, much of his support dwindled and the England and Wales Cricket Board cut ties with him.