Mr. Asbell, a Republican, endorsed Mr. Florio, a Democrat, in the race for governor last year.

Today law-enforcement officials and politicians here questioned how Mr. Asbell could have imagined that his tale of a wild chase and shoot-out through Camden would stand up to the scrutiny of investigators, much less persuade the Governor-elect to reappoint him to a second five-year term.

At his news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Asbell said he had left his office at 5 P.M. on New Year's Day after spending his first day back from vacation checking his mail. Almost immediately, he said, two black men in a green Toyota station wagon starting following him and firing shots from a MAC-10, a fully automatic .45-caliber pistol.

''My back window blew into the back of my head,'' Mr. Asbell said.

The two cars careered through the streets of Camden until they reached a desolate warehouse section near the waterfront, where, Mr. Asbell said, he stopped his Lincoln Town Car and fired back with a .38-caliber pistol that he regularly carries and with a sawed-off shotgun he said he kept under his front seat.

Although Mr. Asbell said he could not describe his assailants or recall the car's license plate number, he was certain he had hit one of the men in the head with a shotgun blast.

''I saw his head explode,'' Mr. Asbell said. ''To me there is nothing better than a sawed-off shotgun. It's a crowd pleaser.''

Curiously, No Witnesses

In explaining the attack, Mr. Asbell compared himself to judges in Colombia who had been assassinated by drug organizations. He said drug prosecutions had quadrupled in Camden County under his tenure.

But law-enforcement officials were immediately troubled by inconsistencies in the story and grew more suspicious when they were unable to find witnesses to the chase. They also found no evidence to confirm that anyone had been wounded at the scene, and there were no reports of such a person at local hospitals.