Ferrigno was born in Sicily and emigrated to the United States. During the 1910s, the teenaged Ferrigno joined New York's Italian underworld. Ferrigno worked his way up the ranks of the Coney Island, Brooklyn based Neapolitan Camorra crime family led by Pellegrino Morano and his top Lieutenant, Alessandro Vollero, who led the Navy Street Gang. It is not known why Ferrigno, a Sicilian, was affiliated with a Neapolitan crime group, which in that era was highly unusual. A possible explanation is that Ferrigno grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhood as the Neapolitans. Steve Ferrigno was the brother of Colombo crime family street soldier Bartolo (Barioco Bartulucia) Ferrigno, who was active in organized crime during the 1940s and 1950s. He served under the rule of Joseph Magliocco and was la