The defendant's appeal is dismissed.

1. The summary of the grounds for appeal is indicated as “H” in the lessor’s column of the instant lease agreement, but the seal of “D Farming Association A” rather than H’s seal is affixed thereto. As such, the instant contract did not have the appearance of the general public to enter into the real private document of the nominal owner.

Therefore, the judgment of the court below which recognized it as a crime of forging private documents is erroneous in misconception of facts.

2. The crime of forging a private document is established when the form and appearance to the extent that the nominal owner can see in writing the document actually prepared by the nominal owner is sufficient to mislead the general public into the authentic private document of the nominal owner. It does not necessarily require the signature or seal of the person who prepared the document. Whether the document is sufficient to mislead the general public into the authentic private document of the nominal owner should be determined by comprehensively taking into account the form and appearance of the document, as well as various circumstances such as the preparation process, type, content, and function of the document in general transactions.

(See Supreme Court Decision 95Do221 delivered on December 26, 1997, etc.). The following circumstances that can be acknowledged by the evidence duly adopted and examined by the court below, namely, ① H entered into a lease agreement with D agricultural partnership that the Defendant’s representative (hereinafter “instant corporation”) to lease land in Echeon-si for KRW 40 million (hereinafter “instant land”) to the said corporation for two years between H around October 201 and D agricultural partnership that the Defendant is the representative (hereinafter “instant corporation”). ② the Defendant had J who operated the instant business before the instant land to cultivate ginseng in the instant land; ② the Defendant had J who operated the said business before the instant land in the instant case, submitted documents such as a lease agreement that can prove the securing of the farmland in the Korea Ginseng Corporation; ③ the instant contract was prepared by the Defendant under the “land lease agreement”.