Blaise Caroleo, 51, was arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Ben Fractenberg

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — A Staten Island grandfather who goes by the online alias “Nimfeater” was busted for possession and solicitation of child pornography after he handed his phone to police in an attempt to vindicate himself following a fight with a Manhattan bus driver, according to prosecutors.

Blaise Caroleo, 51, of Travis, was indicted in Brooklyn Federal Court on last week on charges that he sexually exploited a minor, distributed, received and possessed child porn after police and federal investigators found images on his phone of girls as young as 7 being raped, according to court documents.

He also solicited child porn from minors even up to the day he was arrested on Oct. 16, 2016, prosecutors said.

Caraleo was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Thursday, but failed to appear because he was suffering from a staph infection, according to his lawyer, who added that he was due to have surgery on the injury on Friday and should be ready for court by Tuesday.

A judge ordered Caraleo's attorney to provide a doctor's note confirming the surgery, threatening to issue a bench warrant if Caraleo again fails to appear.

The investigation began after Caroleo got in a fight with a bus driver just before 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2016, at the corner of Beekman Street and Park Row in Civic Center, prosecutors said.

Caroleo, an unemployed elevator repairman, began punching the driver, and was initially arrested for the altercation, prosecutors said. During interrogation, Caroleo told police that he had been defending himself and offered to show them video he had taken on his phone in an effort to prove his case, according to court records.

During the attack he hurled racist epithets at the driver, including calling him a "monkey," according to the Daily News.

“I did swing at him, but it was to defend myself,” he said. “I took video on my phone. Sure, you can see it.”

But when police searched the phone, they found evidence that Caroleo had both possessed and actively solicited child pornography, according to a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court.

The images included two pornographic photos of girls between the ages of 7 and 9, according to criminal complaints.

Caroleo, who has felony gun convictions, had been soliciting the images via an account on the messenger app Kik, where, under the username “Nimfeater,” he solicited child porn from five girls between the ages of 12 and 15 in Michigan, Minnesota and elsewhere in the United States, prosecutors said. He also sent the minors photos of his own genitalia, according to federal prosecutors.

During a search of his home, the FBI found three handguns and a large cache of child pornography.

Caroleo was released on $20,000 bail in October and is currently under house arrest and barred from accessing the internet or having any contact with his grandson, records show.

On Thursday, prosecutors sought to have him jailed while he was awaiting trial, arguing that he was a danger to the community because he induced a minor to commit a sex act.

He’s due back in court on assault charges from the bus incident on May 31, records show.