Lori Berenson
Lori Helene Berenson (born November 13, 1969) is an American who served a 20-year prison sentence for collaboration with a guerrilla organization in Peru in 1996. Berenson was convicted of collaborating with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), a group accused of trying to overthrow the Peruvian government by force, considered to be a terrorist organization by the Peruvian government, and on the U.S. State Department's official "terrorist organization" list from 1997–2001. Her arrest and conviction, and the circumstances surrounding her trials, drew considerable attention in both the United States and Peru. Early life and education Berenson was born and raised in New York City to Rhoda and Mark Berenson, both college professors. After graduating from LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, she enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1987. On her web site, she states that she volunteered for soup kitchens and blood banks and also worked as a mother's helper in the Hamptons as a teenager. While an undergraduate at MIT, she volunteered with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). She dropped out of MIT in 1988 as a sophomore majoring in archeology and