Allen Stanford, the indicted Texas tycoon and cricket impresario who bankrolled the Twenty20 game, has suffered two black eyes and a broken nose in a punch-up in prison.

Mr Stanford, facing trial for allegedly running a $7 billion pyramid scheme through his Antigua-based bank, was admitted to hospital with concussion after the fight on Thursday, officials said. The US Marshals Service said that the 59-year-old, an imposing figure who is 6ft 6in, got into an altercation with another inmate around 10am.

The cause of the fight and the identity of the other inmate involved were not immediately released. The prison is conducting an investigation.

Mr Stanford, who denies the charges against him, was discharged and sent back to the Joe Corley Detention Facility in Conroe, Texas, on Sunday afternoon.

The flamboyant financier, who lived a life of luxury with private jets, Caribbean homes and a castle in Miami, had asked to be moved from the privately run prison because of conditions there. He complained that he was being held in a cell with up to ten other men with no air-conditioning and even, for a spell, no power. He asked to be moved to a federal prison 40 miles away in Houston.

Mr Stanford has been held without bail as a "flight risk" since his arrest on June 18. He faces up to 375 years in prison if convicted of 21 charges for allegedly promising "improbable if not impossible" returns on certificates of deposit sold by his offshore Stanford International Bank as part of a pyramid scheme.

This was Mr Stanford's second trip to the hospital since being taken into custody. He was rushed to hospital shortly before a scheduled court hearing on August 27 with a rapid heartbeat, when doctors discovered an aneurysm in his leg and operated on him. He was returned to prison after five days.

At his last court hearing on September 15, Mr Stanford appeared gaunt and unshaven. His girlfriend, Andrea Stoelker, a former cocktail waitress, was reprimanded by a court official for trying to talk to him.

At the hearing, the judge ruled that the self-proclaimed billionaire, whose assets have been frozen since February, had no money to pay a lawyer and was entitled to be represented by a free public defender.

Dick DeGuerin, Mr Stanford's previous lawyer, asked to withdraw from the case because he had not been paid for months of work.

Mr Stanford is now represented by Kent Schaffer, a veteran lawyer whose previous clients include Congressman Craig Washington, the Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, the author Clifford Irving and the late baseball star Ken Caminiti.

The receiver in charge of Mr Stanford's assets asked a judge last week for permission to sell the tycoon's 112ft motor yacht, the Sea Eagle. The luxury yacht, which Mr Stanford bought for $3.9 million in 1998 and renovated to replace its teak interior with mahogany and install a new galley, is currently listed for sale for $6.5 million at a marina in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Ralph Janvey, the receiver, has received a $2.5 million bid from an investor in Dubai to take the yacht "as is", but expects to raise more to help to repay victims of Mr Stanford's alleged swindle.

The next hearing in the case is on October 14.

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