By KIM MAIALETTI
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN

A fellow Parking Authority employee once warned Joseph Bowen and Thomas Del Rosario about making waves at the Camden agency.

"You two guys better watch out or we will be reading about you in the obituaries," John Melfi, a former Parking Authority employee, is quoted as saying in a lawsuit that Bowen and Del Rosario brought against the authority in October.

Those words came close to ringing true Monday morning, when Bowen was shot and critically wounded outside his Washington Township ice cream parlor. About the same time, police found the authority's former executive director, Anthony Scarduzio, in a friend's home, dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

The shootings, which prosecutors said were related, put an end to a relationship that was at one time friendly.

Bowen and Scarduzio were such good friends that they were pictured two years ago standing waist deep in a hotel pool in San Juan, Puerto Rico, tanned and smiling, hoisting beer glasses in a toast.

Scarduzio kept the snapshot on his desk even after Bowen and Del Rosario filed the lawsuit accusing him and authority commissioners of bid-rigging, money laundering and fiscal mismanagement.

With the lawsuit in October came the start of Scarduzio' s undoing.

Less than a week later, the state Division of Criminal Justice subpoenaed thousands of agency documents dating to 1995.

Earlier this year, Scarduzio came under scrutiny for his close ties to vendors who do business with the authority and for his employment with PaeTec, a telecommunications company that provided the authority and the city with long- distance service.

He later admitted accepting gifts, including two trips, from vendors.

Scarduzio resigned as the agency's executive director May 31 in exchange for $130,000 to be paid in two equal installments. He received the first installment June 1. 1. Scarduzio was expected today to reimburse the agency $15, 000 it failed to deduct in payroll taxes, said Judy Fulton, who replaced Scarduzio as executive director.

The authority received a letter from the state Attorney General's Office Division of Criminal Justice on May 30 advising it Scarduzio was a target of a criminal investigation into the agency's affairs.

A division spokeswoman said Monday it was preparing to charge Scarduzio with official misconduct as early as this week.

William Bowe, the lawyer representing Bowen and Del Rosario, said Bowen was slated to give a deposition in the case Thursday.

Bowe said police had stepped up their patrols around Bowen's home and business in May after the Attorney General' s Office advised him of physical threats made against his client, but Bowen did not have around-the-clock police protection.

Monday's tragedy may have been prevented if the Attorney General's Office had acted sooner, Bowe said.

Bowe and Del Rosario both said they weren't surprised about the shootings.

"I can't say I didn't see this possibly coming," Del Rosario said. "I had openly stated that I was fearful."