Melina Shalysse Benninghoff

I hired her to represent my son in Kings County. She took the money and then basically gave the case to her assistant, who knew nothing about what he was doing. He agreed that Benninghoff was not doing her job, and apologized for her, but that did not help my son's case. I had to fire her and hire... a "real" attorney. This was the day after she called me up to tell me off for speaking to the DA about what was being done and found out she was not only incompetent, but lying to me.

I would not recommend her nor will I ever use her services again. She promoted herself shamelessly throughout the fleeting visit instead of taking the time to find out more about the case from me. She neither proposed nor was interested in a strategy, and never explained the evidence the DA had. She ...was so busy that she showed up rarely in court. Melina never responded to my mail to here requesting discovery information, or any of my attempts to contact her.She didn't even answer my requests for renegotiating bail. She was far from collaborative and in no way took my wishes into consideration.

Worst representation I've ever seen. The best decision I made was to find another attorney. While incarcerated I heared repeatedly that Melina was a great choice for the small public defender list of kings county public defenders. When meeting her I immediately felt her immense ego. Felt like I was l...istening to a car salesman when she said what she could do for me but I sat in jail for 3 months and she never met with me once. Would set up appointments and never showed. Was late to the courtroom and never seemed to take it very seriously. She kept trying to put me off saying she needed time. I did all the work to get things together and couldn't even get in contact with her. Was with her assistant Daniel most of the time and he has no idea what he's doing. Worst part was my case was serious I feared if I stayed with her I would have legitimately been arrested for 30 years.