What court records exist for Stanley Richards’s 1980s robbery conviction and where can they be accessed?

1. What the contemporary reporting actually documents about the conviction

Multiple outlets reporting on Stanley Richards’s appointment cite a 1980s robbery conviction and post-conviction incarceration: The Economic Times, NBC New York, Gothamist, Fox News and others say Richards “served time” for robbery in the late 1980s and spent periods on Rikers Island and in state prison ^{[1] [2] [4] [3]}. Several pieces repeat specific custody timelines—roughly two-and-a-half years on Rikers and additional years in state prison—attributing those timelines to earlier reporting by Gothamist and NY1 ^{[3] [5] [6]}. These are the factual anchors available in the provided reporting.

2. What the supplied reporting does not provide — the key gap

None of the supplied articles attach, transcribe, or cite a courthouse docket number, a county or court of conviction, a judge’s name, or scans of indictment, plea, sentencing minutes, or final judgments; the stories instead summarize the conviction and terms of confinement as background to Richards’s biography and public appointment ^{[1] [4] [7]}. Because the provided sources do not identify the original court file, this review cannot confirm the existence, contents, or precise repository of the underlying court records from the supplied material alone ^{[2] [3]}.

3. What kinds of court records would ordinarily exist for a 1980s robbery conviction (and why they matter)

A robbery conviction from that era would typically have produced several enduring public records — police arrest reports and charging instruments, the court docket and minutes for arraignment/plea/sentencing, a judgment of conviction, and custodial records showing where and when the defendant was confined — all of which help verify dates, charges, pleas and sentences. The supplied reporting references custody timelines and incarceration locations as summarized facts, but it does not reproduce or cite any of those primary documents to substantiate the particulars ^{[3] [4]}.

4. Where such records are normally held — why the supplied reporting can’t substitute for records searches

Court dockets and conviction paperwork are maintained by the court that handled the case and by state custody agencies; contemporary news summaries can reliably report outcomes but are not replacements for original court files. The current reporting relies on journalistic summaries and earlier outlets (Gothamist, NY1) for the chronology of Richards’s confinement but stops short of citing the actual court docket or archival file that would identify the county or case number needed to retrieve originals ^{[3] [4]}. Therefore, the articles are useful for establishing that a conviction occurred, but insufficient to locate or verify primary court records.

5. Practical next steps (what a researcher following these reports would need to do)

Because the supplied stories do not provide the court identifiers or links, any researcher seeking the court file must proceed beyond these articles: identify the county and court of conviction (which the reporting does not name), then query the relevant court clerk’s office or archives for dockets from the late 1980s, and, where applicable, consult state corrections release records to corroborate custody dates. The supplied reporting provides the conviction and custody summary that should guide such a search, but locating the primary court records will require direct records searches not documented in the provided sources ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

6. Bottom line — what can be confirmed from the supplied reporting and what remains unresolved

From the supplied articles it can be confirmed that Stanley Richards was convicted of robbery in the late 1980s and that he served time on Rikers Island and in state prison; the pieces cite earlier reporting for specific incarceration lengths but do not produce court dockets or archival citations ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}. The exact court records (charging documents, docket numbers, sentencing papers) are not included or identified in the provided materials, so their existence and location cannot be confirmed from these sources alone and would require a records search at the appropriate New York court clerk or state archives beyond what the reporting supplies ^{[3] [4]}.