The way Dorothy Barnett's lawyer described it, the 54-year-old mother was not a flight risk and after spending a year locked up in Australian and US jails, she could be trusted to be released on bail.
US District Court judge Bristow Marchant didn't buy it.
Barnett had a history of saying one thing to authorities and doing the opposite, the judge concluded.
"That argument is hardly reassuring given the fact that the defendant has extensive experience in obtaining false identification documents and passports to facilitate undetected international travel," Judge Marchant, in denying Barnett bail, announced in a written ruling.
The decision came a few hours after an emotional hearing in Judge Marchant's Charleston, South Carolina, courtroom on Monday.
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Barnett will likely stay behind bars until next year's trial where, if she is found guilty of international parental kidnapping and falsifying US passport applications charges, she faces a maximum 30-year jail sentence.
Two decades earlier, while on a supervised visit with her infant daughter Savanna in her home state of South Carolina, the former flight attendant disappeared and spent the next 20 years as a globe-trotting fugitive with Savanna clueless about her real name and history, according to authorities.
Barnett allegedly obtained multiple aliases and a fake passport before fleeing to Malaysia, then South Africa, New Zealand and finally making Mountain Creek, Queensland, where she settled.
Her daughter flew from Queensland to be in court to watch her mother's failed bail bid.
Savanna, who was accompanied by an Australian television crew and declined to talk to other reporters, wept during the hearing.
She remains a resident of Queensland and grew up believing her name was Samantha Geldenhuys.
Prosecutors allege Barnett fled the US with Savanna in 1994 after she lost full legal custody of the infant to her former husband and Savanna's father, South Carolina-based Benjamin Harris Todd III.
Todd and US authorities never gave up looking for Savanna and her mother, and in early 2012, the FBI determined she was living on the Sunshine Coast.
On November 5, 2013, the FBI and Australian Federal Police raided the home and Barnett was arrested.
Savanna did not address Monday's bail hearing, but Judge Marchant noted Savanna did not consider herself a victim and asked the court to release her mother.
Barnett's lawyer, Russell Mace, said his client's health had "deteriorated significantly" in jail.
She has lost 7kg, suffers from high blood pressure, and a large lump has been discovered on her left breast.
Judge Marchant, however, said there was a "very real danger that the defendant would once again attempt to flee this jurisdiction if released".
The judge also said the weight of the evidence against Barnett was substantial.
"Although defence counsel indicated that the defendant intends to vigorously contest the charges, the record and arguments submitted at the detention hearing establish that the defendant wilfully, and through a course of careful planning, abducted a minor child from the lawful custody of her father, left the United States, and for the last 20 years has engaged in extensive travel to various countries through the use of multiple false identification documents in order to avoid detection or capture," the judge told the court.
