The defendant shall be innocent.

1. Although the Defendant is granting a loan to the agricultural cooperative as security to a church building, he was trying to hold a meeting to change the loan bank to a lower community credit cooperative, and prepare minutes and submit them to the community credit cooperative. However, he was willing to modify a part of the document as he was unable to leave the church on his retirement.

On November 2011, the Defendant changed the term “FIED” from among the contents of the meeting minutes of the FIE at Kimhae-si, the term “FIE 7 August 201, 201” to “FIE 20 November 20, 201,” the term “FIE D” to “FIE A”, and the term “FIE : D” to “A” to “Temporary President: A” and the said minutes were altered.

B. On December 1, 2011, the Defendant issued the altered meeting minutes to G in charge of the loan-raising community credit cooperatives located in Changwon-si, Changwon-si, and exercised them as if they were duly formed.

2. Determination

A. The crime of altering a private document is established when there is a risk of undermining public credibility by causing a person without authority to alter the content of the document in the name of another person, to the extent that the identity is not undermined with respect to the content of the document which has already been authenticly established. The crime of forging or altering a private document refers to a person who is not authorized to prepare the document in the name of another person, and thus, the crime of forging or altering a private document refers to the preparation of a document in the name of another person. Therefore, if the nominal owner explicitly or implicitly consented in preparing or amending the private document, it does not constitute the crime of forging or altering the private document (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2010Do14587, Sept. 29

The following circumstances acknowledged by the records of this case, i.e., ① the FJ at the time of this case, to which the defendant belongs (hereinafter referred to as the “instant church”) was promoting the change of financial institutions from the agricultural community to the agricultural community credit cooperatives in order to lower the burden of the interest on the secured loan on church-owned real estate.