Family said former Suffolk County Sheriff’s Deputy Richard Stueber was changed by the horrors he faced working at Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Stueber, 50, originally from Riverhead before moving to Connecticut, died by suicide last year. He had a history of mental illness, his family said, and he struggled after the 9/11 attacks. He was forced to retire his sheriff post because of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, the result of  working as an NYPD officer on the pile.

"He was an amazing husband and father with a great sense of humor. My daughter said he gave the best hugs all the time," his wife, Stacie Stueber, said through tears. "He struggled with mental illness right after. It was something I didn’t recognize and I knew him better than anyone. There were things he saw and didn’t talk about it. He talked about what he didn’t see there. There used to be hundreds of people and then there was nothing."

This week, the State Assembly unanimously passed a bill sponsored by Assemb. Joe DeStefano (R-Medford), tailor-made to restore 9/11-related disability and retirement benefits to Stueber’s family, more than five years after they were cut in a bureaucratic loophole. It followed the unanimous approval of an identical State Senate bill by Sen. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood). Gov. Kathy Hochul must sign the legislation by year’s end.

"We’ve been working for years trying to correct this. I was trying to make this right," DeStefano said. "Why he wasn’t grandfathered in is beyond me. To no fault of his own, this happened to him. He earned the pension and was included in the Zadroga act and suffered mental illness as a result of 9/11. Unfortunately, it took until now to get it resolved."

Stueber, a 23-year law enforcement veteran and father of four, had been accepted into the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Program in March 2020.

Nine months later, the state clawed back a quarter of his pension and penalized him for taking his pension early. DeStefano said Stueber was later deemed ineligible due to a change in state law that took effect after he filed for his pension.

He was notified in December 2020 that, due to a state retirement fund change, he was no longer eligible to receive 75% of his police pension. He was reclassified into an employee pension fund that paid 50% of his pension and he was required to pay back the difference of what he'd been paid for 18 months.

While Stueber was facing his own personal battles, he and his family had to pay back more than $50,000 in pension payments. His wife and officials said the financial stress exacerbated his mental illness while they fought to restore his pension. State legislators have tried for years to pass a single bill to restore the benefits owed to his family.

The Assembly’s bill specifically directs Stueber ’s pension to be restored to pay his family the remaining 75% of the pension for retirement and disability. The Suffolk County Legislature will pay $1 million to cover costs for the pension program. DeStefano said the bill would prevent other 9/11 first responders from facing the same legal hurdles.

Stacie Stueber doesn't know how much she’ll receive from her husband’s pension, she said, but it will help care for their four children, ranging in age from college graduates to a freshman in high school.

"He did it the right way and it impacted just him. Legislators saw it as an injustice and said the only way we can fix this is with another law. Now it’s almost too little too late," Stacie Stueber said. "It’s so unfair he’s not here. I don’t know if I’ll ever have peace without my husband, but this renews my faith that people still respect their first responders. ... they say never forget 9/11. My hope is renewed that people don’t forget."