NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Kathleen G. Kane, the Pennsylvania attorney general whose aggressive investigation of her predecessor unleashed a scandal that ended with her conviction this week on felony and conspiracy charges, said Tuesday that she is resigning.

“I have been honored to serve the people of Pennsylvania, and I wish them health and safety in all their days,’’ Kane said in a prepared statement. A spokesman said her resignation would be effective by the end of the day on Wednesday.

On Monday, a jury found Kane, 50, guilty of nine criminal charges, including perjury and criminal conspiracy, convicting her of leaking grand jury information, and then lying about it in a bid to discredit a political rival.

News of her resignation was greeted with relief by the state’s top elected officials, many of whom had called for her to step down earlier in her protracted legal saga.

“What has transpired with Attorney General Kane is unfortunate,’’ Governor Tom Wolf, a fellow Democrat, said in a statement released immediately after the resignation announcement. “Her decision to resign is the right one, and will allow the people of Pennsylvania to finally move on from this situation.’’

Kane was once a rising Democratic star, campaigning in 2012 with a promise to shake up the so-called old boys network in Harrisburg. She won more votes in Pennsylvania that year than President Obama.

But her career took a turn when she found herself entangled in a web of scandal, payback, and political rivalry that led to criminal charges last year. In February, she announced that she would not run for reelection this fall.

“She comes into office with these expectations and it all fell apart,’’ said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. “It just goes on and on, the flood of problems. And many of them she brought on herself.’’

Over a weeklong trial in a stately courtroom here, Kane was accused of concocting a scheme to get back at another prosecutor, Frank Fina, who she believed was behind an unfavorable news article about her office dropping an investigation into Democratic lawmakers in Philadelphia. Soon afterward, prosecutors said, Kane orchestrated the leak of secret grand jury information about a 2009 investigation into the finances of an NAACP leader that Fina chose not to pursue.

“This is war,’’ Kane wrote in an e-mail that was repeatedly referred to by prosecutors in court.

The first deputy attorney general, Bruce Castor, will fill the attorney general’s job for now — something he has essentially been doing already; Kane lost her license to practice law last fall.

Wolf can nominate a replacement, who would need to be confirmed by the state Senate, although he has not decided if he will do so.

In the November election, two Montgomery County residents — Josh Shapiro, a Democratic county commissioner, and state Senator John Rafferty, a Republican — will face each other.