OPINION AND ORDER Pending before the Court is a motion for recusal filed on behalf of Plaintiff Dino Antolini (“Plaintiff” or “Antolini”).1 For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s motion is DENIED. BACKGROUND I. Early Procedural History Plaintiff commenced this action on September 28, 2019, asserting claims under theAmericans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §12182(a) (the “ADA”); the New York State Human Rights Law, N.Y. Exec. Law §296(2)(a); the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code §8-107(4); and the New York State Civil Rights Law, N.Y. Civ. Rts. Law §§40-c & 40-d, as well asa claim for common law negligence. (See Compl., ECF No. 1.) Plaintiff, a wheelchair user, alleges that Defendants failed to make their place of public accommodation, a cocktail bar named Madame X, accessible to persons with disabilities. (Id.
2, 6.) On May 5, 2020, District Judge George B. Daniels entered an Order setting a discovery schedule and providing that depositions must be conducted and completed between October 2, 2020 and December 2, 2020, and that all fact discovery must be completed by December 31, 2020. (Order, ECF No. 33.) On June 1, 2020, Judge Daniels referred this action to me for general pretrial purposes, as well as for a report and recommendation on any dispositive motions. (Order of Ref., ECF No. 36.) On June 10, 2020, I entered an Order providing, among other things, that the parties could adjust the interim deadlines set forth in Judge Daniels’s May 5, 2020 Order, as long as all discovery was completed by December 31, 2020. (Order, ECF No. 38.) Thereafter, the Court heard and resolved several discovery disputes between the parties.2 II. Defendants’ Emergency Motion On August 4, 2020, Defendants filed an Emergency Letter Motion “requesting a framed-issue hearing for the examination of Plaintiff, under oath, on the subject of whether Plaintiff knowingly authorized his purported attorney to commence the instant action.”3 (Defs.’ 8/4/20 Ltr. Mot., ECF No. 60.) Defendants’ Emergency Letter Motion was predicated on criminal charges filed in the Southern District of New York against Plaintiff’s attorney of record, Stuart H. Finkelstein (“Finkelstein”), “in connection with his ‘stealing’ the identity of two individuals to file hundreds of fraudulent lawsuits pursuant to the [ADA] that those individuals never authorized.” (Id. at 1.) Defendants attached as Exhibit A to their Emergency Motion an arrest warrant and criminal complaint (the “Criminal Complaint”) against Finkelstein issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York; the Criminal Complaint asserts counts of Mail Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft, Obstruction of Justice and False Declarations Before A Court. (ECF No. 60-1; accord Compl., U.S. v. Finkelstein, No. 21-CR-00217, ECF No. 1.4) Defendants attached as Exhibit E to their Emergency Motion an Affidavit of Brad Hamilton, who helped Defendant Amy McCloskey open Madame X in 1997. (See Hamilton Aff., ECF No. 60-5, 1.) Mr. Hamilton attested that he had spoken with Plaintiff on November 23, 2019, and that during that conversation Plaintiff had stated, among other things, that he had never been to Madame X, that he had stopped drinking alcohol approximately two years before his alleged visit to Madame X (which, Mr. Hamilton attested, is a cocktail bar that does not serve food), that he never agreed to serve as the sole plaintiff in any lawsuit, and that he “felt he had been ‘scammed’ by his attorney.” (See id.
