After being held for nearly two years on murder and armed robbery charges, Belmont's luck was the jailhouse equivalent of winning the lottery. Cook County prosecutors had screwed up and missed the legal deadline to hold a trial in an apparent mix-up caused after the victim died three weeks following the shooting. By the time prosecutors upgraded the attempted murder charges to first-degree murder nearly a year later, Belmont's right to a speedy trial had been violated, a judge ruled in late January.