Madoff had $173 million signed checks to employees in desk at time of arrest

TPM:

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on its homepage that, according to prosecutors, Bernard Madoff had $173 million in signed checks made out to his friends and employees in his office desk at the time of his arrest.
News reports immediately after Madoff's arrest revealed that, after confessing the alleged fraud to his sons, he asked them for time to distribute bonuses to his firm's employees.

From the Journal at the time:

Mr. Madoff told them he planned to surrender to authorities, but first, he wanted to pay certain employees portions of the $200 million to $300 million dollars that was left.