A former Camp Pendleton Marine testified Monday that he did not visit the home of his sergeant and wife in Temecula early on Oct. 15, 2008, with the intention of robbing or killing them.

Rather, Tyrone Miller, now 25, told jurors at the Riverside Hall of Justice that he was angry at Sgt. Jan Pietrzak for threatening to block his promotion to corporal. After consuming a bottle of brandy plus tequila and beer -- and at the urging of friends -- he decided to confront Pietrzak at his home shortly after midnight.

"It put me in a situation where I felt I really needed to talk to this guy. It can't wait," he said.

Miller went to the house in the company of three fellow Marines, Emrys John, 23, Kevin Cox, 25, and Kesaun Sykes, 26. Each of the four are accused of murder with special circumstances, including murder during a burglary, robbery, rape by instrument and double murder. Each faces a possible death sentence.

Miller and John are being tried by one jury while another jury is handling Cox's trial. Sykes is scheduled to be tried later this year.

The trial got under way in March with Deputy District Attorney Daniel DeLimon prosecuting the case against the three men. Prosecutors contend Miller instigated a plan to rob the Pietrzak home several weeks after he, Cox and Sykes participated in a home-invasion robbery in Oceanside.

Miller's lawyer, Mitchell Haddad, asserted in his opening statement Monday that his client did not have any such plan to rob the Pietrzaks and went there with his buddies simply to challenge the sergeant over his vow not to allow Miller's promotion.

"This has been a carefully orchestrated little symphony by the district attorney," Haddad said.

While the confrontation turned into a brawl between Miller and the sergeant, Haddad said, the other men went their own ways in the house.

"It really got out of control," Miller said.

Miller said he did nor participate in the shootings or sexual abuse of Pietrzak's wife. He admitted, however, that he did cut off the straps to the woman's night gown at the request of a cohort and helped bind the sergeant's hands and legs with duct tape, saying he didn't want the man to get loose and chase after them.

He also said he spray-painted racial epithets on the walls of the home to hurt the feelings of Jan Pietrzak, who was white, while his wife was black.

He admitted obtaining the wife's bank debit card and beating Pietrzak until he gave up the PIN number.

Given Miller's statements that he did not intend to commit a robbery, Haddad asked the defendant why he took the wife's ATM card and used it to extract money from an ATM in Fallbrook.

"It was another stupid thing on top of a lot of stupid things I did that night," Miller said.

The discovery of the ATM card was a key breakthrough in the case. A legally warranted search of Miller's home on Camp Pendleton led to the discovery of the card and, after he was confronted with it, Miller admitted his involvement in the alleged crimes, but not the rape or the shooting.

When asked how he felt about what happened, Miller said, "It's not worth anything, I know, but I'm very sorry. It should never have happened."

On cross-examination, DeLimon sought to undermine the defense's portrayal of the defendant as a basically good guy and dedicated Marine by probing into his involvement in the previous home-invasion robbery. Miller testified that he went along with the idea because the previous robbery was designed to recover money and items taken by a drug dealer from a friend, Melissa Buck, who testified earlier in the trial.

Under questioning from DeLimon, Miller admitted the home invasion was a crime, but said he hadn't perceived it that way and didn't think they would get caught because drug dealers didn't usually report such activity to the authorities. He also admitted to roughing up the individual targeted in the robbery after he had used his handgun to order the man to lie face down on the floor. When asked by DeLimon if he thought such activity was criminal, Miller agreed it was, but said he wasn't thinking about it in those terms at the time.

He said he was thinking "that Melissa got ripped off by a drug dealer and she wanted help getting her stuff back."