Local Digest

"Apparently she does a lot of yard work," Madigan said in an e-mail.

As a precaution, exterminators were dispatched Monday afternoon to the sixth floor, which houses the Department of Public Works. The exterminators "did a check early the next morning," Madigan said. "It appears everything is fine."

"We're certain it was an isolated incident," he said.

-- Nikita Stewart

Man gets 8 years for threat to prosecutor

A D.C. man convicted in October of threatening to kill a federal prosecutor was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison, authorities said.

Wayne W. Pannell, 47, was accused of paying another man, Darryl Tipps, to call the office of Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Sines in February and threaten to kill her and abduct her son. Sines was one of the lead prosecutors in a homicide trial in D.C. Superior Court. She had subpoenaed Pannell as a witness in the trial.

Prosecutors alleged that Pannell and Tipps threatened Sines in the hope of getting the trial postponed or dismissed. Tipps, 45, has pleaded guilty in the case and testified against Pannell, who was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts.

Tipps's sentencing date could not be determined because Roberts has ordered that the case proceed in secret.

-- Del Quentin Wilber